


Methadone

by rabidbinbadger



Series: Season 10 [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 10x14, Angst, Blood, Bottom Cas, Bottom Dean, Bottom Dean Winchester, Coda, Cooking Lessons, Episode: s10e14 The Executioner's Song, First Blade, Fluff, Gentle Sex, Gore, Graphic injuries, Hallucinations, M/M, Nightmares, Post Episode Fic, Rimming, Rough Sex, Spells & Enchantments, Top Castiel, Top Dean, Top Dean Winchester, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-14 19:23:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 43
Words: 118,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3422735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidbinbadger/pseuds/rabidbinbadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something sinister is taking root in Dean Winchester. Something even the Mark of Cain has reservations about.</p><p>Or maybe it just doesn't like to share.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Tags will be added and amended with each new chapter. Work updates whenever I finish the next chapter but I'm trying to keep it to around once a week (unofficial posting date Thursday), life and job and applications permitting.

 

_Nothing to red. Red and black.  A formless void of colours and indistinct shapes. Boiling, searing, smouldering heat.  Begging, shouting, screaming. Hot and wet and brutal, bubbling, glorious. Triumph._

He wakes up, sweating and gasping – haunted by the cloudlike remnants of a dream being blown apart by the winds of the waking world. He feels uneasy, pulled taut. Too little Dean stretched over too large a frame.

He grabs a towel from the bathroom and wipes himself down – tries to sop up the mess on the bed and gives up. His sheet and his clothes both get changed and he stumbles into the kitchen.

Cas and Sam are both there, coffee mugs in hand. One of them is drinking; the other is examining the contents of his mug like it contains all the secrets of the modern world.

“Dean, you're up." Sam spots him, smiling a not quite reassuring smile.

 "Yeah. How long was I out?"

"10 hours, give or take."

"Oh.”

 He doesn't feel ten hours rested. He feels jittery – too much caffeine on too little sleep wired.

"So, I think I found a case?"

"You two go, I think I need a bit more, y'know."

"Oh. Okay, are you not-"

"I'm just tired, still."

"Yeah, yeah. Of course."

 

*

 

There’s a fly in the room. Dean gave up chasing it an hour ago – one smashed lightbulb later. He tries to ignore it and go back to his book, but he keeps catching sight of it in the corner of his eye, again and again until he just gives up, puts the bookmark in and watches as it buzzes erratically around the room.

He thinks it’s looking for an exit, watches it finally locate the window and fly headlong into it. It falls, dazed. He watches it repeat the mistake again and again until he can’t bear it. He fights with the only openable window in the room for a while, getting increasingly tempted to just punch a hole in it, but eventually triumphs.

He watches the fly continue to smash into the clear pane, even though there’s an open window just a few centimetres away. It keeps going, persistent, stubborn.

He grabs a swatter from a drawer, succeeds in putting it out of its misery.

 

*

 

_It starts with a smudged, dirty paint-water hue, just like before. It doesn’t stay that way; colours start to peel away from each other, resolving in a duochrome whirr of two distinct shades. Black and red, but still mostly formless as they struggle to marshal themselves into distinct shapes. The red washes out into the corners of his vision, staining everything sanguine hue. The other colour – tar dark and as sticky as it – writhes into two thick pillars, squirming, blurred at the edges._

_Something screams, red spots form in the centre of the shorter pillar, spilling out, breaking out into a line, a torrent, an arterial gush._

 

*

 

There’s blood on his hands when he wakes up.  His scream brings Sam and Cas running. Cas grabs his hand and sniffs at it.

“It’s not yours.”

Dean and Sam both frown – they hadn’t considered that it was. They’d had other, more innocent targets in mind.

“It was a cow, free range. Not distressed, it wouldn’t have realised it was being slaughtered.”

“So?” Dean asks.

“It means you didn’t-”

“It means it wasn’t a person. This time.” Sam states, flatly.

“It means that if he was the one who slaughtered the beast, he wasn’t cruel.”

“I am still here.” Dean gripes, but he’s too shaken to put any real bite into his tone.

“So, what next?” Sam asks.

“I, uh…” Dean flounders.

“I’ll keep watch over you tonight.” Cas supplies.

“But-”

“I don’t sleep.”

“And if I hurt you?” Dean snaps.

“You’re not Cain. You’re human, I can still overpower you.”

“Yeah, for how long.”

Cas frowns.

“We will find a way to fix this, Dean.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

He pulls away from Cas’s still lingering touch and locks himself in the bathroom. He starts to wash his hands, changes his mind, runs a shower. He stands under the spray until he feels clean.

It takes a long time.

 

*

 

He tries to stay awake. He drinks enough coffee that Sam starts making barbed comments about cutting Dean open and him bleeding grounds. Cas stays up with him, tries to keep him awake although he clearly disagrees with this method of coping. He’s willing to try Dean’s way first. He asks him questions, makes him keep talking, presses and irritates him. He doesn’t go as far as splashing water on him, even though Dean asks.

Eventually, and despite both of their best efforts, Dean falls asleep at the table. When he wakes up, he’s in his room. He doesn’t remember dreaming, but he knows he must have. There’s a towel underneath him and it’s soaked through. He sniffs at it, convinced that he can smell the barest hints of sulphur. The towel ends up in the bin.

               

*

 

Cas asks him if he wants to try and stay up again tonight. Dean colours slightly and tells him no. The image of Cas carrying him to his bed, laying down a towel and then watching over him while he slept unnerves him. Plucks at something uncomfortable and at the same time violently desired. Cas must sense this, because he doesn’t come into Dean’s room. He sits on a chair outside, like a sentry. It makes Dean feel like Don Corleone, lying in his hospital bed, just waiting for something bad to happen.

It doesn’t this time. He wakes up sweat soaked and disorientated the next morning, but clear of any blood or offal.

The next night he hears Cas settle in to his chair and pulls open the door.

“You can come inside.” He mumbles, half hoping Cas won’t hear him and he can retreat back inside and this won’t happen.

Cas does hear, looks up, face unreadable.

“Are you sure?”

“Unless you’re gonna make a big thing out of it.” Dean shrugs, aiming for nonchalance and soaring miles wide.

Cas smiles, picks up his chair and relocates inside.

“Just so long as you don’t spend all night staring at me.”

Cas waves his paperback. Dean settles into his bed, turns so he has his back to Cas and pulls the covers over his face. He listens to the sound of Cas breathing, the rustle of pages turning – the angel miraculously able to read in pitch darkness somehow. It lulls Dean to sleep much faster than he expected.

Three nights this pattern holds for, and then Dean wakes in darkness, screaming with no sound. Cas’s hand ghosts hesitantly across his shoulder, unsure of whether to comfort or not. Dean grasps on to it, pulls him into the bed.

“Just for tonight.” He whispers.

Cas nods, allows himself to be rearranged and manhandled into a comfortable position.

Just for one night turns into another, and another, until Cas gives up bringing in a chair and just settles in the bed without having to be asked. It doesn’t stop the dreams, and Dean feels guilty for asking for it when it serves no real purpose, but not guilty enough to stop.

 

*

 

Dean can’t sleep. Cas is curled around him, breath steady and calm against his side, but it’s a source of distress rather than comfort. It’s the guilt; it always comes back to the guilt. Guilt that Cas probably doesn’t quite understand what Dean’s asking him to do isn’t something friends usually do. But that’s just low level. That’s a broken glass verses a broken neck, in the grand, guilty scheme of things.

It comes down to the fact that he’s putting Cas in danger again, even more so than usual. First he went and gave him the Blade – and of course he did, there’s no one he’d trust more to hide it away safely. Which is not to say that he doesn’t trust Sam, he does, of course, but Cas, well, he’s always been good at hiding things.

So Cas has the Blade. The one thing that off-the-deep-end-Dean is going to want enough to kill for. The one thing that he’s going to want enough to kill _Cas_ for, Cain’s bitter words clanging through his head.  But he didn’t have a choice with that – he could hardly leave the First Blade with Crowley. What he did have a choice about was inviting – begging – Cas to share his bed, no matter how chastely. Doing this is putting his fucking unrequited love affair ahead of the person he’s been harbouring it for.

He should stop, but he doesn’t want to – and, somewhere deep down in that buried, smothered pit of things he can’t allow himself to think about  if he wants to continue to function – he doesn’t think Cas wants to stop either.

The guilt prompts him to mumble “you know, normal friends don’t do this” into the pillow, next to Cas’s ear.

“I know.” Cas replies, which is unexpected. He forgets that Cas knows people now. Understands far more of the joke and nuance of human relation than he ever used to.

“Oh.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Don’t mind?”

Cas clearly hears something he doesn’t like in Dean’s tone, because he tugs at his arm, forces eye contact.

“I’d still want to do this, even if it didn’t help your nightmares.”

“Oh.”

He’s trying to work out where the rest of his vocabulary went. He definitely used to know more words than just ‘oh’.

Cas kisses him, once, on the forehead.

A kiss on the forehead. Just vague enough, just unclear enough to allow Dean to interpret it whichever way he wants. Or maybe just vague enough to protect Cas, who fucking knows anymore.

“Cas..”

“I can go, if you want.”

“No.” Dean blurts out, but he doesn’t know how to carry on, what to say next.

“Okay.” Cas replies, like that’s the end of it. Like there’s not going to be some big blowout, like he can just quietly admit his love in the most understated fucking way ever and everything will just carry on.

“You’re overthinking.”

“What?”

“I can feel your heartrate increasing.”

“That’s cheating.”

Cas rolls his eyes and the fond exasperation makes Dean forget, for a moment, all the things that might hold him back.

He kisses Cas back, tentatively and chastely. Feels Cas smile beneath his lips and return the kiss, threading his fingers gently into Dean’s hair.

It only took them seven fucking years.

 

*

 

_Grey washes to red and black and tries to sharpen itself into other colours, fails and settles for hues. The scene resolves into something recognisable.  A room of some kind, picked out in carmine and ruby. Two silhouettes, both tall, one more so. The taller one lifts its hands. A gesture that could mean surrender or could mean an imminent attack. He can’t take the risk. He has something in his hand. A sword? A knife? A weapon, anyway._

_The shorter figure twitches, and he can’t help it. He plunges his weapon into its sternum, doesn’t wait to see the blood rise and bubble, pulls out the weapon and sheathes it in the other silhouette. The two figures crumple, bleeding and blending into the background until there’s nothing but red._

*

 

His breakfast doesn’t taste like ash. It doesn’t. It tastes like pancakes, it tastes like flour and milk and eggs and syrup. It tastes like fucking food. He can taste it, he can, he fucking can. He’s chewing it and it’s not like eating cardboard in a volcano, it’s like sitting at the kitchen having a kind-of-unhealthy breakfast with his brother and his whatever-the-fuck-he-calls-Cas-now.

The food ends up smeared against the wall, cut through with fragments of plate and brick dust and whatever the fuck else. He’s on his feet before he realises, fists clenched and eyes as sharp as his bared teeth. Sam surges upright too, balanced on the careful line between violence and comfort, poised to see which he’ll tip over in to.

Cas doesn’t stand, he stays as is, watching with shrewd and careful eyes, assessing, thinking. Not relaxed by any means – if you looked under the table you’d see him balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to spring up if need be. He’s staying down, non-threatening and out of sight just in case he needs to intervene.

Dean looks at the mess slipping down the wall and back to his hands. His expression plummets from feral and down into terrified. Colour draining in cartoonish fashion and eyes flaring drug-wide.

“Dean?” Sam hazards.

Dean’s gaze slides over to his brother, body immobile like he's been frozen, only able to communicate with his eyes.

Cas finishes appraising the situation and stands, wolf-quiet on his feet as he slips up behind Dean. He touches the tips of his fingers to the back of Dean’s neck, gentle, gauging. Dean tenses, hunched defensively, and then he relaxes. Cas settles his palm over Dean’s nape. The skin under his fingers is hot and clammy, pulsing with erratic warmth. He focusses, pulls a few rogue sparks of grace from where they’re sputtering around his kidneys, wreaking a mundane and hopefully temporary kind of havoc. He harnesses them, using them to drop the temperature of his own body by a few degrees.

Dean leans into his touch, eyes slipping closed, allowing his senses to slowly reduce themselves to the focal point at the back of his neck. Sam averts his eyes, suddenly embarrassed, struck with the certainty that he’s intruding on something quiet and private and intimate.

The tension doesn’t bleed out of Dean. It creeps out inch by inch, until he’s in an almost meditative state, swaying lightly on his feet. Cas removes his hand, strokes down the side of Dean’s cheek and gently tugs at his elbow, leading him away to his bedroom.

Sam watches them go, wondering when that started. When friendly touches turned into something else. His first reaction is a muted kind of joy, joy because he wants them to be happy, of course he does – his brother and his close friend. But his second is worry – because Cas is dying and he remembers the last time Cas died. He doesn’t want to watch that happen to Dean again, but inevitably even worse.

 

*

 

_First there is grey, and then there is a wash of red and black, resolving itself into two familiar profiles. A Sam shaped silhouette and a Cas shaped shadow. Shading creeps back in, whites and greys offering form and substance. Long, shaggy hair on one, an ill-fitting suit and tie on the other. The Sam-wraith sneers a hideous grin and draws Ruby’s knife from its belt. Dean jerks back, hands drawn up defensively, weaponless but not helpless._

_An eye still held on the Cas-spectre Dean lunges forward, grasping the fake Sam’s wrist and bending it back. Ruby’s knife ends up on the floor, and then in the Cas-phantom’s hand. Dean floors ‘Sam’, grabs its face and smacks it against the floor until its eyes roll and its tongue lolls. ‘Cas’ lunges for him and he rolls out of the way, kicks himself upright and charges straight at it, heedless of the blade, heedless of any supernatural strength this doppelganger might be hiding._

_He smashes the blade out of its hand with a clenched fist, drives the other into its face, feels teeth dislodge and fly free, others tearing through skin to poke out of its cheek, ghoulish. The red spikes up, an emotion as much as a colour, and he charges ‘Cas’ to the ground, kneeling on its chest and driving his fists into it, again and again and again._

_He sees angelic grace spark and crackle, blue flooding the wounds and mending them, over and over, but he doesn’t stop. This can’t be Cas. It’s a copy. A perfect copy. Perfect down to the last stray hair, the last hitched gasp._

_He can feel something wet tracking down his face. Rain, but it can’t be rain because he’s inside, and it can’t be tears, because this isn’t Cas. It’s a monster, a villain wearing Cas’s face. He brings a hand to his cheek and smudges it across, looks at it. Blood and water._

_He licks at it, copper and salt. He can taste that. It doesn’t taste like ash. It’s the first thing in weeks. He wants to stop, he needs to stop. His left hand is doing what he wants but his right isn’t, it burns, heat and light cycling and flowing down. It won’t stop, he isn’t in control any more. He’s the vessel, the tunnel through which something else is flowing._

 

 

*

 

He screams back to consciousness, a howl torn from stained teeth.  He’s alone in the bed for the first time in nearly three weeks. He can taste the blood in his mouth again, sticks his finger up by his gums and pulls it away red and coppery. He throws back the covers, damp with sweat or something worse, trips and crashes onto the ground. His hands don’t reach out in time, his face smashes into the concrete, cheekbone grinding against the floor.

He lies there for a moment, revelling in the cold on his hot, tacky skin. And then the cool touch reminds him of Cas’s hands and he forces himself to his feet, remembering his dream, tasting the blood in his mouth. He feels his stomach roiling, rejecting something recently put into it. He can’t allow himself to throw up, can’t see what has been swallowed down, what he’s converting into himself, to flesh, to vital force.

His hand flits into his vision and he clocks the colour, brownish-red of dried blood. It could be innocent, it must be. He careers from room to room, shouting, screaming. Every yell without a reply amps him up a dial further, makes him scream a decibel louder, shred his throat a little more. Blood wells up under his tongue, far more than any normal injury would offer. There’s something wrong, something supernatural happening here.

He hears a noise from outside, a howl. Not human, not even inhuman. Animal, probably one of the things that have been circling his home and his head for days. Yellow eyes and white teeth. They’ve been quiet until now, howling only at night, when he's trying to sleep – never in the day time hours. There must be something disturbing them, something bad.

He charges out, tries to open the door and realises there’s a weapon, a knife, covered in fresh dripping blood, clasped in his right hand. He tries to drop it but it’s stuck there, glued with gore and flesh and drying innards. He forces the door open, runs outside, following the howls.

 

They follow the trail of blood and smashed household items. A book, pages ripped and trampled under muddy feet, a cupboard door pulled off its hinges, shards of glass, from tumblers or bottles or maybe even windows.

The trail ends outside the bunker. Dean is standing there, howling up at the sky, screaming, shaking. Self-inflicted scratches cover his face, arms and chest, blood dribbles from his mouth, too much to be contained by his tongue, his teeth. He stops screaming and starts muttering, odd, fragmented sentences, something about the cycle and the source, it ends at the source, it ends at the source, stop the cycle.

Cas tips his head, gesturing for Sam to get back inside the bunker. Cas moves forward slowly, carefully. Approaching a wounded animal. He holds his hands out in front of him, high over his head. His bare hands are weapons, he knows that, Dean knows that.

Sam reappears, hands Cas a towel. He takes it slowly, carries on walking towards Dean, who isn’t showing any signs of noticing his existence.

He stands directly in front of Dean, lowers his hands, waits. He doesn’t react. Cas reaches his arm out slowly, feathers his fingers over Dean’s shoulder. He doesn’t react. Cas gets braver, caresses his fingers along his cheekbone, his forehead, drapes the towel over Dean’s shoulders and gently leads him back inside. Dean lets himself be led, no recognition, no resistance.

Sam tries to catch Cas’s eye as he leads Dean inside, but either he’s oblivious, or he’s determinedly looking elsewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, edited is a strong word for what happened to this piece I'M SORRY OKAY. Having a job takes up so much time 0/10 would not recommend. Someone give me a trust fund. 
> 
> Also you can find me on tumblr at [rabidbinbadger](http://rabidbinbadger.tumblr.com/)
> 
> EDIT: If I had realised Spn was going on a month long hiatus I wouldn't have rushed this so much, oops. More to follow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long - I've been applying for jobs so writing cover letters kinda took precedence.
> 
> I had to split this chapter in half because it was getting out of hand. The next half is written but it needs editing and I'm too tired to do that to any decent standard tonight. Expect the next update on the arbitrarily chosen day of thursday. (Also the rating goes up to E next chapter, so you've got that to look forward to - or not, if that's not your thing).

_The wolves won’t stop howling. The noise rages and rattles around his head, bouncing off the inside of his skull and echoing cacophonously back, multiplying and expanding until it’s all he can hear. He tries to shout, tries to scream and block it out, but he might as well be mute for all the difference his voice makes in the din._

_Then his cunning kicks back in and he forces the panic down, shuts up and tries to hone in on the direction of the noise. Sam and Cas must be somewhere near the wolves. That must be why they’re making such a racket during the day, when before they’ve only ever filled his head at night._

_The noise shifts and writhes, like a living thing trying to escape his grasp, before finally it settles. He points his body to the south, north wind at his back, and lopes off on the trail of the wolves._

Cas leads Dean into the bunker and settles him down on their bed. It’s like dealing with an especially placid horse, he has to be nudged and pushed every step of the way, but he puts up no resistance, just accepting Cas’s lead. Sam hovers awkwardly in the doorway.

“I uh, I can deal with the scrapes. No sense wasting your grace now, we might need it later.”

Cas shakes his head in dismissal.

“I’m going to try and wake him up.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“I don’t want to leave him like this.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Cas cups Dean’s face in his hands, rests their foreheads together and directs his grace outward. Dean feels different to usual, but not demon different. There’s resistance. It’s like trying to reach through thick tar to dredge his consciousness to the surface. Cas pushes and pushes until he feels he’s in danger of becoming overwhelmed, and then retreats back to himself.

There’s a slight pressure in his temple. Not a headache, but the beginnings of one. He remembers that from his human days. He needs pre-emptive measures – a glass of water and a handful of Advil.

“It didn’t work.” He tells Sam, unnecessarily.

“Why?”

“I must be too weak. I knew this grace wouldn’t last as long as the first, but it seems to be fading at an unprecedented rate.”

“So what are our options?”

“Wait until he wakes up.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“I might be able to call in a favour with some of the angels, but they hate Dean-”

“Better to give him a chance to wake up and not waste our one favour?”

“Something like that.”

Sam notices him rubbing at his temples.

“Are you okay? The last thing we want is you crapping out on us too.”

Cas ignores his question.

“Can you get the first aid kit? I want to do what I can.” He’s loathe to leave Dean’s side, even for a moment.

What Sam delivers isn’t a conventional first aid kit by any standards, but it does. Cas uses the skills that Dean taught to him, with a tired smile and a muttered, “just in case.”

He wipes down Dean’s wounds with an out-of-date antiseptic wipe, dipped in whiskey. Not exactly medical grade alcohol, but it does. When the scratches and cuts are clean he turns his attention to Dean’s mouth, levering his jaw open. He cleans the blood from his teeth and under his tongue and then swabs his finger around, looking for the source of the wound. He doesn’t find it. He cheats, casts his grace out again, checking for internal bleeding. It’s easier now, moving through Dean’s present tissue instead of searching for his missing consciousness. There’s nothing, that Cas can locate anyway.

He sends a general pulse of healing energy into Dean regardless. Fuck it, it might help.

Dean’s eyes flare open and his body twitches.

 

_The further he travels the more familiar the terrain looks, the low scrubland of the wilderness around the bunker giving way to a thin woodland and slowly growing up to a thick, foreboding forest._

_He hears a shout – Cas. It echoes around the trees, directionless. It’s coming from everywhere and nowhere, covering the howling and rendering him unable to progress._

_A blinding flash of lightning illuminates the scene, but there’s something wrong with it. Behind the trees he can see a flat space, like a cliff-face or a great, pale rock. There’s something on it, something familiar. A photograph. One of his. The lightning flashes again and he can see his and Cas’s room, intercut with the forest scene. He’s hallucinating, dreams bleeding into reality. He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, shakes his head back and forth like a rabid dog._

_The visions won’t stop, even with his eyes closed. He stumbles, pitches forwards and throws his hands out to brace himself._

_He screams, the pain bringing him violently back to the forest. His hands are submerged in a bubbling pit of swampy black goo. He tries to jerk them out, too panicked to remember the key to getting things out of quicksand or tar – or whatever the fuck this is – is to be slow and measured. The panic costs him._

_He manages to get free, throws himself back where he knows it’s safe, wipes the steaming, burning mess onto the ground, watches it scorch through leaves and twigs. Smells the acrid smell of something more substantial as it gnaws its way down through his flesh and skin, down to jarring, vivid white._

“Dean!”

Cas’s exclamation seems to provoke some reaction. Dean’s hands twitch and his eyes dart around, unfocused but frantic. Sam careens back into the room, takes in the scene.

“What’s going on?”

“He’s almost awake!”

Cas sends another spurt of grace out through his fingertips and into Dean, hoping it’ll be the catalyst that allows him to tip over back into consciousness.

Dean whips his head around, catches Cas’s eye. For a brief second he doesn’t recognise him, and then he does.

“Cas-”

He brings his hands up to his eyes to wipe them, as if he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing. And then with no visible provocation or warning he howls out a scream of pain like they’ve never heard from his mouth before, and then he passes out. Properly, this time.

 

_When the last of the acid mud has been wiped away, his hands are still technically there. There’s still some muscle resting on the bone, a few loose folds of skin trailing off, but there’s so little left that there might as well be nothing at all. They might as well be severed at the elbows and his throat slit along with it._

_His hands are how he defines himself, measures his worth. They’re what give him meaning and purpose. He’s a hunter; he’s one of the best hunters to have lived. And what good is a hunter who will never again be able to hold a gun or a knife or a bag of fucking salt._

_He can’t even put himself out of his misery._

_He howls a long, unrestrained, miserable sob, and slumps against a tree. He remains there until the pain becomes too much and he passes out._

 

When he comes back to them, he comes back violently. Sam is asleep in another room. Cas has Dean tucked up in their shared bed. He’s curled into him, head resting against Dean’s chest so that he can hear his heartbeat, make sure it's still there. It’s been two days and they haven’t tried to wake him again. Not after that bloodcurdling scream and the subsequent collapse. They just have to trust to him to come back to them in his own time. It’s his speciality. He always goes bloody, but he always comes back to them, too.

One instant he’s static, breathing in and out, heartbeat steady. Cas has a moment of warning, a brief shudder of escalating pulse and then Dean becomes a kinetic force, limbs flying, kicking, punching and even biting.

Cas uses his angelic strength to pin Dean tight against his chest, holding him and trying to stop him hurting himself. Damage to his own person he can deal with.

Dean quickly tires himself out, slumping against Cas. He’s shaking, vibrating back and forth, more of a wreck than Cas has ever seen him.

“Dean?” He asks carefully. He needs to know if Dean is okay, but not at the risk of spooking him or sending him into another fit.

“Cas?” He murmurs into his arm, breath tickling the skin.

“I’m here, Dean.”

“I found you, they didn’t get you.”

“Who didn’t get me?”

And then he stills, frozen.

“My hands, Cas.” His voice rises in pitch, panicked.

“What about your hands, Dean?”

“They’re gone, they’re gone, I can’t even feel the burning anymore.”

Cas pulls him gently upright, takes his hands, hale and whole, and lifts them up, so they’re touching Dean’s face.

“They’re still here, Dean.”

He doesn’t react like he can hear Cas, carries on staring, wide-eyed and panicky into the distance.

Cas pulls the right hand gently across to his own face, strokes it across the ridge of his cheek and then over his lips.

“You can feel that, Dean.”

“Yeah.” Some of the tension eases out of him, but not all. “Yeah, I can.”

“What happened?”

He pauses for so long it seems like he isn’t going to answer, then spits it out all in one breath.

“I woke up and I couldn’t find you. There was howling, I was following it, because, because you were there, and then I could see the bunker, and I fell. There was this stuff, like tar, it burned my hands, down to the bone in places.”

“It was a dream?” It’s more a question than a statement.

Dean pulls his hand away from Cas’s face and rests it on the bed.

“Looks that way.”

“How bad was it?”

He won't meet Cas's eye, whispers the words to the sheets, pulled tight in his clenched fists.

“I wanted to die. I looked down, and I knew I’d never be worth anything again, so what's the point in going on. Except I couldn’t even kill myself, because I couldn’t hold a knife, or blow my brains out with a gun. I might as well have been a slab of meat.”

“Dean-”

“Don’t." His voice rises, angry, but still not enough to look at Cas. "I can’t hear that bullshit right now. About what I’m worth or not.”

Cas nods, slips off the bed and grabs the ‘medicinal’ bottle of whiskey from the table.

Dean turns on the TV, an old portable thing they picked up for a few bucks, and they pass the bottle back and forth in silence but for the buzz and chatter of the screen. Neither of them want to be alone with their thoughts right now, and neither of them are quite ready to talk about any of this just yet.

 

*

 

Dean falls asleep on Cas’s shoulder about a third of the way into bottle, the emotional trauma clearly having taken its toll. He doesn’t dream, or not that Cas can notice, anyway. There’s no twitching or worried groans. He’ll take that as a good sign.

Not that any of this is good. The Mark is starting to affect him in unpredictable – even unprecedented ways. Nowhere in the lore have dreams been mentioned, and certainly not of the waking nightmare kind. It could have something to do with Cain, Cas supposes. Killing the father of murder is bound to mess with anyone’s head, but this most recent dream, it’s not what he’d expect from the Mark.

The Mark is a thing of destruction and rage. It’s unnerving that it seems to have flipped from dreams of indistinct murder to dreams where the opposite happens – where its bearer _loses_ the ability to destroy. Something about this isn’t right.

Before he can pursue that line of thought too much, Dean stirs.

“Cas?”

“I’m here, Dean.”

“’Kay.”

He nuzzles into Cas’s side, pulling him down into the bed and wrapping his arms tightly around him. The lingering remnants of his dream, where Cas and Sam had both been gone, are making him nervous, edgy. He’s not exactly going to go and climb into Sam’s bed and spoon with him, but Cas he’s allowed to do this with. Cas he can anchor himself to, cling so tight he can’t ever leave again.

 

*

 

When Dean awakes properly the next day, he refuses to talk about anything. Sam tries to cajole him over breakfast, switching from harassing to wheedling and eventually giving up. Dean is an implacable wall of “look, I’m fine. I didn’t even dream last night, ask Cas.” To which Cas is forced to nod, looking sheepishly at Sam. An apology for allowing himself to be used as another barrier to healthy communication.

Despite Dean's apparent nonchalance, he’s clearly shaken by this newest dream. That night he drags his heels, plies himself with coffee and Red Bull. It’s 7am and his hands are shaking, his eyes wide and jittery, when Cas finally feels he has to intervene. He takes the mug away from Dean – who’s so twitchy and wired that he feels a swelling desire to punch Cas bursting up out of nowhere.

“Dean, you have to sleep eventually.”

“I don’t.”

“You’ll only make this worse. Hallucinations are a system of sleep deprivation.”

“I’ve never had them before.”

Cas conveys the most disparaging of _so what_ ’s with a shrug.

“I know you won’t be able to sleep, not yet, but at least come to bed with me.”

This is the point where he’d expect Dean to make a lascivious joke of some kind, but there’s nothing forthcoming.  Dean’s head is buzzing, he’s so tired, so wired and awake but at the same time so exhausted. He’s created a unique form of torture for himself, the fear and the caffeine singing through his veins keeping him conscious while every other cell in his body screams out for sleep.

He stumbles upright, having trouble moving through the air, like his limbs are weighed down with sand, like the atmosphere is made of water or tar or jelly. Cas half leads, half carries him to their bed, lays him down. He looks at Dean, lying there, shaking, and knows he can’t leave him like this. He settles in beside him, presses their foreheads together, and purges the caffeine from his system.

“Cas-”

He knows what the objection will be, gets in there before it can be voiced.

“It’s not a waste if I use it on you.”

Dean doesn’t reply. He’s still not sure how to deal with this, being the one who gets looked after. That’s supposed to be his job, not Cas’s.

He tries to keep his eyes open, tries to fight himself awake for a few more moments, but it’s a futile battle. Within seconds his breathing has settled and he’s calm.

Cas stays there, watching him, for the entire night. The last time he left Dean alone – to make an ill advised trip to the store for morning coffee – was right before they found him, semi-conscious, outside the bunker. Cas doesn’t know if that would have happened regardless of his presence, but he's not going to take that chance. He’s not going to let Dean out of his sight until they have this figured out.

Dean doesn’t dream that night. He wakes up, refreshed but nervous. The first thing he does is check his hands, still unable to shake the nagging feeling that there’s something wrong with them. Cas notices, takes hold of them tenderly, lifts one up to his lips and kisses it.

“Did you dream again?”

“No.”

Cas smiles.

“Maybe it was just a temporary thing, an aftereffect of Cain.”

Neither of them believe it, but it’s a convenient enough lie. A Winchester special.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. I was out at a play and they had to evacuate the building halfway through so it didn't finish until way late.

For all their bed sharing, they haven’t slept together yet, and Cas doesn’t know how he feels about that. He knows Dean likes sex – knows Dean _loves_ sex. He wonders if it’s because he’s an angel, that Dean feels he has to take this slow and ‘court’ him or something. Maybe Dean doesn’t think he’s interested in him like that, the incident with the prostitute echoing around his head. Or more likely maybe Dean’s just too stressed, too strung out to think about sex right now.

At least, that’s what he thinks until he walks into their room and catches Dean fingering himself. He’s lying on his back in their bed, head thrown back and legs spread, fingers buried up to the hilt. Cas isn’t sure what to do. Torn between being upset that it appears Dean would rather do this without his assistance, and the warm heat of desire building in the pit of his stomach.

“Cas.” Dean moans, eyes still closed. Cas’s upset diminishes, smothered by lust. Dean doesn’t know there’s anyone else in the room, which means that if he’s calling Cas’s name he’s more than likely fantasising about him.

“Yes, Dean?”

Dean’s eyes fly open and he blanches, pulling the sheets over his crotch, trying to cover himself. He looks guilty, _ashamed_.

“Wh-what are you doing here?”

“I was looking for you.”

“Oh, uh, shit. I-I’m sorry you had to see this, hear me.”

“Why?” Cas cocks his head to the side.

“I shouldn’t, it’s disrespectful to you. You were never supposed to know.” He looks like he’s about to throw up, like he thinks Cas is about to hurt him.

“It _was_ inconsiderate.”

Cas steps forward, slow and measured, puts his hand on Dean’s chest and goes in for a kiss, open mouthed and filthy. His other hand wanders down to Dean’s crotch, delves under the sheet and trails along his cock.

Dean jerks upwards, shocked and still not completely understanding what’s going on. Cas’s fingers creep gently down to circle around his hole, still soppy with lube, and he presses in one finger and then another. He finds Dean’s prostate easily, he rebuilt this body from dust and atoms once, and massages it.  Dean breaks the kiss, groaning with pleasure, letting go of his doubt and worry and getting with the program. He fumbles around on the bed until he finds the bottle of lube and he presses it insistently into Cas’s free hand.

Cas strips off his clothes, savouring the sight of Dean’s body spread out before him. He doesn’t need to open him up; all the hard work has already been done. Dean moans when he pulls his fingers out, one at a time, turns over so that he’s on hands and knees. Cas slicks his cock up and aligns himself with Dean’s ass, teasing him, rubbing it gently along the crease, using one hand to scratch a trail along his ribs, leaving little raised indentations.

“Cas, c’mon.” He moans, and Cas laughs, gently.

He stops teasing, mounts Dean firmly, hands gripping his hips. He gives him a while to settle, get used to the intrusion. His gaze sweeps over Dean’s broad, muscled back, cataloguing where it’s changed in the years since he recreated it. There are new freckles, a couple of scars and a little black mark, like a splinter dug deep in beneath the skin next to his spine. He’s about to ask about these changes, the stories behind the scars and blemishes, when Dean clenches around him, grunting, “move, Cas!” and suddenly Cas’s world is narrowed back again, down to the glorious heat around his cock.

He gives a few slow, experimental thrusts and then he picks up the pace, pistoning back and forth. He’s rough, probably rougher than he should be, but he knows Dean can take it. From the way he’s grunting and pushing back beneath him, he thinks Dean probably likes it like this. He’s certainly not complaining, at any rate.

He hones in on Dean’s prostate again, pulling a drawn out groan from the man writhing beneath him.

“Cas, I-”

Whatever he’s about to say gets cut off in a particularly solid thrust, the bed starting to squeak as the frame bashes aggressively and rhythmically against the wall.

Cas removes one hand from its tight grip on Dean’s hip, reaches down to fondle his balls and then stroke along his cock.  A few quick tugs have Dean throwing his head back, howling in delight as he comes, hard and fast. Cas catches the last spurt, rolls it between his fingers and pushes them, filthy wet, into Dean’s mouth. He moans again, arms collapsing out from under him, leaving his face buried in the sheets. He stays like this as Cas continues to pound into him, fucked out and moaning incoherently.

He clenches around Cas’s cock and mumbles something that sounds more like “aye dove glue” than “I love you”, muffled as it is. Cas chooses to take it as the latter, context and all that. Those words, that thought, combined with the squeezing pressure around his cock, are enough, finally, to throw him over the edge. He comes, hard, and collapses over Dean with a satisfied sigh.

They stay there for a moment, before Dean makes a face and pushes at him.

“I’m all for naked cuddling, but uh, maybe after you’ve got your flaccid dick outta my ass?”

Cas scrunches up his face, trying not to laugh. He pulls out with a wet pop, settling himself beside Dean, who turns over so they’re facing each other.

“Flaccid.” Cas rolls the word around his mouth like he’s trying it out for size, a stupid smile on his face.

“That’s what it’s called.”

“It’s a dumb word.”

“You’re a dumb word.”

“Real smooth, Dean.”

“You know you love me.”

“Yes.”

Dean blushes, suddenly embarrassed.

“I didn’t think you’d want to, y’know.”

“You could have asked.”

“You might have said no.”

Cas shrugs. He understands Dean’s particular brand of neurosis. He was afraid that Cas wouldn’t want to have sex with him, and that asking would put him off sharing a bed and all the other, little intimate touches they’ve shared so far. He’ll throw his body headlong into any risky situation, his heart he treats more carefully.

“Well, I probably won’t, next time you ask.”

“Only probably?”

“I wouldn’t want you to get complacent.”

“You little shit.” He grins, shoving at Cas’s side playfully.

Dean uses Cas’s solid frame to push himself upright, grimacing at the tackiness between his legs, and fishes around in the bedside cabinet. He pulls out a pack of wet-wipes, grabs a handful and throws the rest at Cas.

“We could just take a shower?”

“Or we could just stay in bed?”

“But a shower would be more effective.”

“Don’t make me say it out loud Cas..”

“Say what?”

“You’re such an asshole.”

Cas grins, rolling over the bed and coming up behind Dean. He clamps his teeth down on Dean’s shoulder, laughing as he yelps. He folds his arms around his waist, pulling him back down onto the bed.

“You don’t want to shower _because you want to cuddle_.”

“Not me. I thought you should have the full first time experience, this is entirely for your sake.” Dean tries to pout, but he can’t help the smile that breaks through halfway.

“Of course, Dean. You’re so considerate, I should have known.”

Dean swats at his face, half-heartedly.

“Anything for you.” He mumbles, because he’s apparently incapable of being sincere at normal human volume.

Cas hums, shifting so that they’re settled down together, his head tucked on Dean’s chest where he can hear his heartbeat. Dean entwines their legs, like some kind of gangly human octopus, and buries his nose in Cas’s hair. He smells like bonfires and apple shampoo.

He smells like other things too, things Dean wouldn’t even be able to mumble. Things he’s never, ever going to be capable of saying out loud. Things like home.

 

*

 

_There’s something digging into his back._

_“Cas.” He mumbles. “Get your fucking elbows out of my spine.”_

_Cas ignores him. Lazy fucking bastard. It’s not like he can possibly be asleep. He’s an angel, he’s likely been lying there for the past six hours just staring dreamily at Dean’s clavicle._

_Dean groans and elbows him back. He’s met with solid resistance. He knows Cas has angelic sturdiness on his side, but he can’t always have felt this solid, like a block of wood in fact. He flails out with his hand, howls in pain when he connects with something that definitely isn’t Cas._

_He jerks to his feet, eyes open and fully awake now. He takes in the familiar woodland, knows what’s coming next even before he looks down at his hands. He can feel it already, a dull, throbbing ache. He pulls in a few deep breaths, preparing himself, and then looks. The injuries from last time are still there – worse if anything. The flesh is hanging off, rotten and gangrenous. He tries to flex his fingers and only one moves._

_His automatic reaction is to fall back to despair, but he forces it down, fights it and tries to think rationally. This happened before and he woke up and he was fine, two hands, all working. Unless that was the dream and this is the reality. Good things are happening to him in the other world, and good things don’t often happen to him._

_And how often are your dreams sequential? How often do you take a wound in one and find it still there, but a few days more rotten, the next time you come back._

_No. He can’t afford to think like that. This has to be the fake world. Sam and Cas aren’t here, they’d be with him in the real world – are with him in the other world._

_He can hear the wolves howling. Fuck it, he might as well go after them. They’re the only living thing he’s even heard in these woods so far. That’s got to count for something, right? Maybe this dreamworld is some sort of quest – he finds the wolves, he kicks them to death or whatever he can manage in this state – and he never ends up in this shitty place again._

_Yeah. Right._

_He starts off at a steady jog, carefully tracking the noise. It doesn’t seem to be getting any closer, but it’s not getting any further away either so at least there's that._

_*_

_It’s not that he lets his guard down, he’s Dean fucking Winchester he doesn’t do that sort of shit, it’s just that it’s hard to have a guard when you’ve very recently lost the use of both of your hands. Don’t get him wrong, he’s sure there are some right fucking badasses around without the use of their arms. He is not one of them. He is what he once labelled Cas, a baby, sans trench coat._

_The vampire comes at him from the side. He automatically reaches for his weapon, realises that not only does he not have a weapon but that he also wouldn’t have any way of wielding it if he did. He puts up a fair fight – he actually gets in a pretty serious roundhouse kick that sends her flying into a tree. Problem is, a roundhouse kick is not one of the more commonly known ways to kill a vampire._

_She gets back up, laughing, and hisses at him._

_“Never fought a vampire before?”_

_Dean laughs, bitterly._

_In the heat of the fight he tries to punch her, recoils as the shock and pain lances up his arm. He cries out in agony, folding in on himself. It’s all the chance the vampire needs. She’s on him in a shot, fangs out and embedded in his neck before he can so much as twitch. He lashes out at her in an increasingly feeble fashion, the pain in his arms unimportant for now. She holds on tight, vicelike, as his flailing and kicking gets weaker and weaker._

_His vision fades in and out as she drains him drop by drop. Eventually he swims back to consciousness and she’s gone. Not that it’s going to do him much good. She hasn’t left because he’s been miraculously rescued or anything. She left because she’s full and there’s barely a drop of blood left in his entire body. And what little there is, is currently dribbling out into the dirt._

_He has a realisation, as he’s lying there, waiting to die: before he started coming to this nightmare forest, he never felt pain as a result of his dreams. He’s felt pain in supernatural trances, or in djinn hallucinations; he’s felt pain in the real world that’s somehow translated into his dreams. He’s never had a burning pain in his hands while asleep and woken up to find them fine. There’s always been a root cause in the real world._

_Which, if he’s going to be pessimistic, and while you’re bleeding out into the dirt does seem like an appropriate time to be pessimistic, probably means that this isn’t just a dream. And maybe if he gets hurt here he doesn’t wake up physically hurt (assuming once again that this isn’t the real world because if it is he’s going to be dead in about three seconds and there is literally nothing he can do about that so why worry) but the mental trauma still hangs – his hands proved that._

_Basically, in a really fucking roundabout way, he’s wondering if dying here is going to actually kill him._

_Damn, he really should have been more fucking careful._

*

 

Cas watches Dean’s body twitch and writhe. He doesn’t try and wake him up this time – his attempt to get Dean conscious again was the cause of the pain in his previous dream. Dean coughs and a trickle of blood dribbles out of the corner of his mouth. Cas waits for him to take another breath, keeps on waiting.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

_He’s not gone for long. Sensation comes back before sight, the feeling of his veins emptying themselves out onto the floor, pulled tight and hollow. It stays this way for a while, a drawn out moment where all he feels is weakness, his own death, and then the dull, aching pain of bleeding out cuts through with something sharp.  It starts in his arm, deepens, thickens until it tears through him like a sandstorm.  It scours him from the inside, grating and grinding, raw and possessed with fury._

 

_He is a whirlwind, a chaos of energy and wrath and destruction. He springs up to his feet, every muscle in his body feeding off that red hot, white hot, burning fuel as it cycles through his flesh, vivifies him and sears life into cells that had given themselves up to death._

 

_He has been reborn, purified in blood and fire and dirt. He reaches down to the reddish, brownish muck on the ground and trails a finger through it, brings it to his nose and inhales sharply, almost smears a mark – baptismal upon his head. He hesitates, and, as though this world were simply waiting for him to pause or doubt himself, it starts to dissolve._

 

_White fragments cut through the edge of his sight, meandering their leisurely way to the centre of his vision. He snarls, furious at being brought back only to be sent down again. He brings his hands to his eyes, and they’re whole again, fingers the tender pink of new flesh, skin knitting itself back together. He’s whole, he’s whole, they can’t take him now, THEY CAN’T TAKE HIM!_

 

 

*

  

Cas waits a beat more, frozen, conflicted. He can’t remember the thing Dean taught him, to bring people back to life when they’ve stopped breathing. Sometimes to do with a song, _Another One Bites the Dust_. What about it though, he can’t place.

He doesn’t know if he can risk more angelic interference, is about to throw caution to the wind and just go for it, when the Mark starts to glow. Faint at first, so subtle that Cas doesn’t notice it for a few beats, and then it gets brighter and brighter until it’s bathing the room in a bordello-red light. It makes Dean look demonic, the highlights and shadows picked out on his face in blood crimson and hellsmoke black.

A sickening stench pervades the room. The rancid egg reek of sulphur undercut with something almost fresh – like pine needles or newly turned earth. Cas recoils. There’s an energy in here now – something familiar but so alien, so confused and tangled and twisted that he can’t pin it down.

Whatever it is, though, it can’t be good for Dean. Cas gives an involuntary shudder. He wants Dean to start breathing again, open his eyes, but he’s terrified to see what colour they are. What that might suggest.

Dean pulls in a deep breath – an inward scream – a rattling, rasping, groaning thing. Cas recognises it, incongruous, from a thousand cheesy horror films full of exorcisms and demonic rituals.

Dean’s eyes flicker open and Cas sees black in the right one, can’t tell if it’s because of the shadowy glow or something more sinister. Time seems to freeze momentarily, and then Dean’s on his feet, screaming, snarling, furious. He throws Cas to the side, but there’s no demonic power behind it so Cas stays his ground. Dean howls again in frustration, getting right up in Cas’s face and Cas sees with relief that it’s just a burst blood vessel in his eye. Not great news in the scheme of things but better than demon black.

Dean crowds Cas, spittle flying right up in his face, waiting for him to falter or flinch, show any sign of weakness. He doesn’t. Dean roars his frustration again, one hand finding its way to the Mark, rubbing at it frantically. It’s still glowing, but more faintly now, not quite enough to illuminate the room.

It carries on fading, quicker now, and Dean seems more hesitant, less feral than before. He breaks eye contact with Cas, looks down and rills softly. Cas keeps his gaze firmly fixed, his stance strong – like he’s trying to stare down an animal of some kind. They stay this way as the Mark carries on fading, from neons to pastels and back to normal. At the same instant that the light vanishes entirely, Dean’s eyes roll into the back of his head and he collapses.

Cas checks his pulse – steady – and carries him back to the bed.

Sam knocks on the door, waits a beat and then comes inside.

“Is everything okay – I heard yelling?”

“For now, but I think it’s past time we talked about this.”

“Yeah, of course. Do you wanna wake sleeping beauty over there or shall I?”

“He’s out cold.”

“Have you tried kicking him – make sure he’s really out. I wouldn’t put it past him to fake unconsciousness just to get out of talking about things like a grownup.”

Cas wouldn’t either, but he’s not in the mood for wisecracks. Sam quickly picks up on this.

“Okay, so we’re not joking about this quite yet, huh?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“Something troubling.” Cas pauses, trawling for the right words. “I don’t think his dreams are anything to do with the Mark.”

“Oh?”

“I need to talk to Dean first, confirm something, but I think whatever this is, it has nothing to do with the Mark – that the Mark is actively fighting it.”

“But if the Mark isn’t causing it, what is?”

“I don’t know – maybe he touched a cursed object-”

“And forgot to tell us?” The scepticism in Sam’s words is almost a physical thing.

Cas shrugs. He doesn’t know what the problem is, only has suspicions as to what it’s not.

“Maybe it doesn’t have a supernatural cause…” Sam suggests, hesitantly. “He’s had a tough life. He practically raised me – at the expense of his own childhood. He’s been to hell, purgatory, just literally stopped being a demon. That’s a lot of mental pressure.”

“You think he’s having a breakdown?”

“No. But maybe he has like PTSD, or something.”

“I don’t know how to cure PTSD.” Cas says ponderously. “Unless I remove all his traumatic memories. He wouldn’t want that.”

He’d barely remember who I am, Cas thinks, cataloguing the rap sheet of his crimes against Dean, weighing them against the good things. Dean doesn’t have the trademark on self-loathing – they’re as bad as each other, just in different ways. Cas hates himself for what he has done to those close to him, Dean hates himself for what he hasn’t been able to do. Maybe that means they complete each other, round each other out. Or maybe instead of two quite damaged people they combine to make one great, big black hole.

Cas stares at his hands, hard, like they’re letting him down. A mixture of pissed off and sad.

“Oh, hey, Cas. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know.”

“There are other ways – professional help.”

Cas gives his best dead-eyed sceptical stare.

“You think you can persuade Dean to go to _therapy?_ ”

“I know it sounds mad, but you can’t tell me he thinks he can seriously carry on like this. He knows as well as we do that something’s got to give.”

“How would we even find someone qualified?”

“I – yeah, okay. I’d need to make some enquiries-”

“Talk to him about it first. If he decides you’re going behind his back he’ll refuse out of principle.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Anyway, it isn’t fair to talk about this without him here. I’ll call you when he wakes up.”

Sam accepts the dismissal, backs out of the room and gently shuts the door.

 

*

 

“I don’t have fucking PTSD!”

Their attempt at having a mature and reasoned discussion is, as forecast, not going well.

“I’m perfectly fucking fine you sack of shit.”

Dean glares at Cas like he’s betraying him, by not siding with him against Sam, by standing a little way back, trying to be neutral and not agreeing with either of them. And maybe Sam didn’t go about it tactfully. Maybe the first thing he said was, “So look, I’m gonna put the feelers out for some hunter therapists.  Me and Cas, we think it might not be the Mark. Might be PTSD or trauma.”

Cas had wanted to roll his eyes to the heavens, slap Sam. He’s know Dean for longer than anyone else, how could he possibly think this was the pertinent way to persuade him to do something they’d have a slim chance of achieving even if they trod carefully.

“I never said I agreed.” Cas had tried to hedge, and Sam had looked at him with those kicked puppy eyes, as he betrayed their united front.

“ _Sam_ seems to think you agreed.” Dean had spat. “So what, Cas, you think I’m ‘traumatised’.” He’d air quoted so aggressively the crack of his knuckles had echoed around the room.

“We only said it was a possibility.” Cas had sighed the words out, no _I'_ s now. Hiding in the plural, splitting Dean’s fury and hoping this wouldn’t end in him being kicked out of Dean’s good graces (and his bed).

And so they’ve come to this, Dean denying anything is wrong with him, while Sam gapes incredulously, and Cas tries very hard not to upset anyone more than they’re already upset. Himself included. Scratch walking on eggshells. This is donning a steak and catnip suit and going for a jog around the lion enclosure.

“I think what Sam meant to say was that we need to consider all the options. A lot of bad things have happened to you, Dean. More than most people could bare-”

“So you think I’m fucking broken, then? That what this is?” Dean spits, the gurgling feeling of betrayal – always so close to the surface, so ready to break through – making him mean.

Cas’s temper frays, snaps.

“I think it’s a miracle you’re still breathing! I think it’s a miracle you haven’t taken a gun to your head or thrown yourself off a cliff or ended up in an asylum somewhere, gibbering and giggling to yourself! Humans weren’t built to survive the kind of pressure that you have both endured, been _subjected_ to.” His head whips around to pin Sam in his glare, let him know that this lecture, this _howl_ , is for him too. “Every day where you both wake up is a _revelation._ ”

He gestures wildly, taking another step closer, in to Dean. He’s inches from his face now, so close Dean can feel the angry little gasps of breath that come out with each admonishing word.

“And now something has gone wrong – you’re having dreams that intrude on your waking life, that force _the Mark of Cain_ to be so worried for the health of its host, it wakes you up to escape them. _That’s not good, Dean_. And supernatural or psychological, I don’t think we should rule anything out until we can fix this problem.”

Dean tries to say something, barely gets out a breath before Cas cuts him off with a snarl.

“No. Don’t you dare try and turn this around, accuse me of seeing you as a problem to be fixed. I’m saying you _have_ a problem. And if this is down to PTSD or trauma, if it’s not some ancient curse or grudge hex or something, then that means you have an injury, like a broken bone, but invisible. Don’t let your stupid, macho, I-have-to-take-on-the-world-alone-and-win-because-I-am-an-island bluster _kill_ you.”

Cas forgets for a second that he can’t teleport out of the room, tries, throws his hands up in the air and goes for the much more satisfying slammed door instead.

Dean looks at Sam, says weakly.

“I was only going to say I’d do the stupid therapy.”

Sam fixes him with the same laser stare he’s been perfecting for years.

“Were you?”

Dean doesn’t answer, pointedly turns his back.

 

*

 

“I’m still furious with you.”

Cas mutters under his breath as he crawls into their bed that night, wrapping his arms tight around Dean and burying his nose in his hair.

“I’m still pissed at you, too.”

Dean replies, rolling over so that they’re facing and entwining his legs with Cas’s.

“Good. I’m glad we established that.”

“Yeah. Good.”

Dean lies there for a while in silence, running Cas’s words through his head. It’s less the words though, it’s more the strength of feeling, the anger behind them. He recognises it. It’s how he feels when Cas and Sam are being stupid. Reckless with their lives.

He recognises it, understands it intimately. Doesn’t mean he has to fucking like it.

“Fine, put the fucking word out.” He mumbles into Cas’s neck. It’s not like they’ll find one any time soon anyway. “But we keep looking for supernatural causes in the meantime.”

“Good. I want to make sure we cover every option.”

“Oh, well. Yeah. Good.” He’s momentarily thrown, thought he’d have to fight for his way.

“I’m just trying to help you, you stubborn ass.”

“Yeah, well.”

Cas kisses him softly on the forehead.

“Still mad.”

“Sleep on the sofa then.”

“Only if you come with me.”

“Stop it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m trying to still be mad too.”

Cas flicks his nipple, hard.

“OW!”

“Does that help?”

“You fucking jerk.”

Dean turns over, so he’s facing sulkily away from Cas. Cas laughs gently into the back of his neck, rearranges himself so that his hand is lying over Dean’s heart. He wants to be able to feel his pulse. For sentimental reasons, and for those more sinister too.

He keeps track of it through the night, shifting when Dean does, always keeping some form of tactile contact – even at 5am when Dean suddenly throws off the covers and kicks him in the groin. It stays steady, not a hint of fright or fear, no tinges of sulphur or strange, demonic lighting. Everything is normal, peaceful even. It should be enough to make Cas nervous, but he chooses to treat it as a respite, a gift. They have no idea what's coming around the corner, might as well take what they can.


	5. Chapter 5

Cas is lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. It’s dark but he can see pretty well. There’s a crack in the plaster like a Lichtenberg figure. He traces it with his eyes, picking a new branch every time and following it from root to tip. He understands the appeal of tattoos – something permanent etched into your skin, a battle against the fractiousness, the ephemerality of life. He thinks he’d get one like that, the pattern carved jaggedly above him, if he were to get one for aesthetic pleasure instead of for function.

Dean’s head is pillowed on his chest, mouth slightly open and snoring raspily. He seems content, dreamless. He’s not, but Cas isn’t to know that. He snorts, shifts slightly and nuzzles further into Cas’s side. Cas moves his hand from where it’s curled around Dean’s shoulder, buries it in his hair and starts to rub in gentle circles. Dean doesn’t seem to notice, but it’s as much for Cas’s benefit as for his. He finds it soothing. Something simple to focus on – clockwise and anticlockwise, up and down – to distract from the thoughts rattling around in his head. He’s an angel. He should be able to process a hundred different layers of thought at once, think and counterthink, dismiss and call to the surface as he wills. Instead he just worries, fruitlessly, gnawing at a bone long chewed clean. He’s an angel, but he’s a poor example of one.

He said that, to someone, long ago. It’s still relevant, though. He’s not sure nowadays if he’s complimenting or insulting himself. A little of column A, a little of column B perhaps. Or maybe it’s irrelevant. Species can skew you in one direction or another. It doesn’t have to create you. Look at Hannah and Balthazar, Anna and Metatron, Hael and Raphael. Look at Cas himself.

Dean and Cas spend the rest of the night curled together, both outwardly restful. To anyone standing at the door, they look like a normal, contented couple. No nightmares, no trouble. Internally they’re seething, rioting, but they’ve both become adept at not letting the damage show.

*

_The dream starts off normally. Well, normally for a dream anyway. He’s at a safari park, driving the Impala and not even slightly worried about something clawing, charging or denting it. That’s how he knows it’s a dream._

_Time doesn’t progress like it should in a normal dream, though. There’s no sudden chop and change of location, no disconnect between cause and effect. He climbs out of the car, abandons it in the lion enclosure, starts walking, walks and walks over the horizon._

_The terrain bleeds from leonine savannah to forest, the trees getting gradually more familiar as he goes. More familiar than they should be, for the small number of visits place he’s made to this place. As he crosses the boundary into the forest proper, marked by nothing more than an ill feeling, Dean looks down at his hands. They haven’t reverted, they’re whole and clear. He’s a hunter again. Weaponless, but that can be fixed._

_He kicks around the trees for a bit, disturbing piles of leaves, testing fallen branches for their heft and sturdiness. Eventually he finds one that meets his specifications. He has a club now. It’d be better if he could find a good chunk of rock to sharpen it with, but for now it’ll do._

_He listens carefully. The howling of the wolves is distant, but he can still hear it. He considers briefly, looks around for footprints, or a trail or any sign of other life. Doesn’t find anything. He twirls the club between his two hands, tests his strike on an innocent branch. It doesn’t cleave in two, there’s no neat slash like he’s used to – his favoured weapon a blade – but it certainly does._

_He’s ready. He’s not going to be taken down so easily this time._

*

Finding a supernatural therapist isn’t easy. There aren’t many hunters who survive long enough to face up to their traumatic lives, there are even fewer who’d ever cast off the macho bullshit and admit that they need help. There are a surprising amount of supernatural creatures who operate as therapists – a sudden conversion to a monster you thought was only a nightmare is a traumatising experience for anyone. Unfortunately, of those, it is very hard to find one who will consent to treat Dean Winchester.

“I’m sorry Sam.”

“Don’t sweat it, Garth.”

“It must be bad, if he’s asking for help.”

“Uh, he’s not. We kinda persuaded him.”

“Regular people persuaded, or tied up in a basement persuaded?” Garth teases. 

Sam snorts.

“Just, keep the feelers out, yeah?”

“Of course Sam, anything for you guys.”

Sam can hear his cheery grin over the phone. Garth is happiness personified. Fuck it, maybe he’d make a good substitute for a professional, assuming they don’t find one. Sam makes a note to ask him, if they ever get that desperate.

They exchange a few more pleasantries and then they hang up. Sam sighs, rough and heavy, and then turns back to the books stacked up in front of him. He likes to read, he loves to learn. This kind of research, not so much. There are over 400 books in the bunker that mention supernatural dreams. He knows this because the Men of Letters have a very long and comprehensive glossary of their collection. It is, in fact, its very own selection of books, taking up an entire bookcase of their colossal library. They need to get Charlie to digitise it – or even Sam, when he has a spare few months. Ha. Spare few months, in between apocalypses and demons and tragedies. Yeah, right.

Of the glossary books, M through Q are missing, sections of C, H, L and R are charred and ruined, and the last half of T is drenched in some kind of glowing, cartoonishly radioactive looking goop that Sam is not touching for love nor money.

D however, is untarred. And the dreams section of D is as thick as a Harry Potter book. And not one of the early ones. Sam really, really fucking hopes that the answer he’s looking for lies in the relatively small supernatural dreams section. He can face branching out, because it’s for Dean, but he really fucking doesn’t want to.

He flips open _Hypnos and Thanatos – On Dreams and Death_ and turns to Chapter 3, “Surrounding Stimuli and the Effects On the Subconscious Mind.” He stares at the page for longer than he ought, eyes the focussed wide of the almost asleep trying to do something important but boring. His head nods repeatedly, no matter how many times he pinches at the webbing of his thumbs, bites the insides of his cheek and shakes his head.

He reads the same paragraph three times before he processes that this isn’t some ultimately unimportant bit of class reading. This is his brother’s health on the line. Less speed more haste, et cetera.  

He shuts the book and makes his way back to his room. He raps once on Dean and Cas’s doorframe, intending to just yell a quick goodnight. Instead Cas appears at the crack in the door, looking more drowsy and rumpled than a guy who doesn’t sleep has any right to be.

“Sam?”

“I was just letting you guys know I was heading to bed.”

“Oh. Goodnight, then.”

“How’s Dean?”

“He’s asleep.”

“Oh, shit.” Sam lowers his voice. “Peacefully?”

“As far as I can tell.”

“Oh, well, great.”

“Yeah.”

 

*

 

_He’s surprised nothing’s come for him yet. He’s been here at least an hour now, maybe more – his watch is showing a different number every time he looks as it, and not in the usual, linear progression of time way either. Unless he missed the memo and 09:47 now comes after 18:21 for everyone._

_Maybe the attacks are something to do with the wolves – like the closer he gets to them the more dangerous it is – or maybe his decision to go after them is some kind of trigger. Kicking off the next phase of the dream, the one where he gets brutally murdered, or maybe just horrifically maimed._

_“Fuck it.” He announces to the trees. “I’m not playing. I’m just gonna sit here and do jackshit. How’d you like that?”_

_The trees don’t give a crap, because as alien and foreboding as they look, they’re not Ents, or some malevolent woodland spirits. They’re just trees. Alive, yes, but with no comprehension of human language or meaning._

_Dean soon realises his attempt to out-logic his dreams hasn’t worked. Whatever’s closing in on him is doing so a little bit too eagerly to be subtle. He can hear it grunting and muttering to itself under its breath in Gollum-esque fashion. It clearly thinks it’s found itself an easy meal. He’s about to prove it very fucking wrong._

_He listens to it whuffle and snigger as it makes its way behind him, casual and calm as it draws closer and closer. He waits until he can practically feel its fetid breath on the back of his neck and then he flings himself backwards, crushing it under his weight and catching his attacker completely by surprise._

_He flips over and smashes the club into the creature’s jaw, sending bloody teeth flying. It scrambles out of his way, one hand cupped to its mouth, and Dean finally gets a good look at it._

_The creature is relatively humanoid. Amphibian characteristics bleeding on through, gill-like scrapes along it neck, webbing – cut and bloodied from being dragged through branches – between its fingers and under its arms._

_It looks, if he’s completely honest, exactly like a monster from a b-movie horror he watched once, a long time ago, when horror films were a bit of fun and not his fucking day to day life. Congrats imagination, he chides himself. Maybe try something a little more creative next time, something that’s not copyrighted material._

_On the plus side at least it’s another notch towards this being the dream, not the other world. Nothing this tacky looking could be real._

_It spits out a few serrated teeth, still dripping with blood. Dean spares a quick glance for where they land, if he can gather them after the fight he might be able to attach them to his club, make it a little bit more dangerous. He’s pretty confident with his chances. This creature clearly isn’t built for open land. Its feet are heavy and webbed – built for speed and silence in the water. Not so efficient on the ground._

_It lunges for him, and because he’s expecting it to have the same kind of trouble moving through the air as he would on the ocean floor, he underestimates it. It’s fast, much faster than he expected. He jinks backwards, but not fast enough to avoid the clawed hand that scrapes across his face, digging into one eye._

_He panics, semi-blinded for a moment, but then he forces himself to relax. This isn’t real. It can’t be real. It doesn’t matter if he gets hurt or dies here. It isn’t real and he won’t die. It’s fine. He’s fine._

_He still throws himself into the fight. Half blind, but he copes. He tries a few smashes with the club, but it deflects every time, thin arms deceptively strong. It tries to steal his weapon, he’s not sure why when it has claws capable of slashing him in half, and he uses the grip to pull it in closer. He lashes out with his free hand, grabs its neck and squeezes. He can feel the gills, slippery and frantically pulsing beneath his fingers._

_It tries to claw at him again and he drops the club, brings both hands up to its head and snaps it to the side. Its neck breaks with a solid crack. He doesn’t feel much of a sense of accomplishment. This was a mercy kill more than anything. There are other, nastier things in this forest than him._

_Other, nastier things which have been drawn by the sound of the fight._

_The dragon is more cautious than the misshapen abomination that preceded it – to call that thing a monster would be an insult to Eve. It watches from the trees as the hunter is wounded, flicks its tongue, lizardlike, over its teeth. To this hunter it is unkillable, no blood-forged swords to rend its flesh, but it can still be injured, and there are creatures much older, much more powerful than a mere dragon in these woods. It wouldn’t do to sustain any kind of injury, severe or otherwise, that might slow it down._

_Stealth, not strength is the order of the day. To this end it is currently in relatively human form. It hasn’t bothered completely, picked and chosen aspects of both its states of being – dappled green skin to blend in with the forest, clawed hands and feet to better cling to branches, human eyes, even though they don’t see half as well in the dim light, because they don’t glow quite so obviously._

_The dragon sneaks up behind the hunter while he’s wrestling with the_ thing, _extends its hands out as he breaks its neck, echoing his movements. As he drops the abomination the dragon grips his neck in a stranglehold, savours the panicked fluttering of his throat as he shouts out for help, and then sears him clean through with its thermokinesis._

_*_

_One moment Dean is triumphant, the next there’s hot pressure at his throat. He tries to shout out, yell for Sam or Cas – panic making him forget just where he is – and then everything burns out to black and red._

_*_

_His arm burns, hot and furious, but no match for the scorching, searing at his throat. He tries to snarl, to cough, anything to dislodge the feeling. It doesn’t work. The heat in his arm flares up for a few moments and then it tips the other way, into ice, spiking jaggedly through his veins and up, around his gullet and into his brain. He screams and everywhere the air from his lungs touches little flakes of frost form and fall, onto the ground and his face like snow._

_The dragon backs away quickly. This is something new, something it’s never encountered before. Something that looks human, but that dies, comes back five minutes later, when it has its snout buried in his belly, when his heart hasn’t been beating, when there’s been no sign of life._

_He comes back and he tries to burn himself clean, fails and summons up the counter element without a spell or flick of his fingers._

_The dragon doesn’t know what this thing is, but it can’t be human._

_It runs._

_*_

_Dean watches it go from his prone position, howling, furious. His limbs are weighed down with the echoes of death, slower to restart this time. He can feel true sensation gradually creeping through his nerves, starting at the Mark and diffusing through to the rest of his body. His mind is fully recovered though, the first thing to be brought back, and it screams at his useless flesh and bone to right themselves, tear after that pathetic, insolent fucking thing. A creature that dared to try and slaughter the new Cain._

_Finally he’s able to right himself, what seems like hours but is really barely scraping minutes later. He throws himself in the direction the dragon took, but it’s already too late. He can see the white creeping at the edges of his vision again, slow and gradual, inch by inch until everything is static._

 

*

 

Cas feels Dean’s heartbeat stop at 6.28am. He sits up as carefully as he can, trying not to disturb Dean’s body. He fires off a quick message to Sam and then looks at the Mark, waits for it to begin glowing again. It takes a while, perhaps longer than before, he isn’t sure.

It isn’t long before Sam comes rushing in, primed and expectant, woken by Cas’s text. Cas gestures for him to sit on the chair by the bed and say nothing, do nothing. They don’t know what happens if they disturb this process – does Dean stay dead, does he just come back to them a bit quicker or a bit slower? They aren’t prepared to take the risk.

The smell starts up again, sulphur and pine needles, and Sam wrinkles his nose. He nearly jumps out of his skin when Dean takes his first inwards breath, more like a death rattle than a sound of rebirth.

Dean’s eyes flicker open, one cloudy and rheumatic looking, but even before their eyes it mostly heals itself – stays bloodshot, but now functional.

Dean doesn’t get up from the bed this time. He lies, immobile, and howls. Every muscle cords and bulges, like he’s pinned down by some supernatural force, or like he’s still in the throes of sleep paralysis. He lies there, roaring his displeasure, for a few minutes and then, finally, he seems to gain some control of his limbs.

He throws himself at Sam, pushes him off the chair and onto the floor, leans over him and shouts into his face.

“Don’t flinch!” Cas hisses, as quietly but as pointedly as possible.

Dean hears him, head flicking to the side like a rabid dog, propels himself over and tries to topple Cas too. He fails. Cas grasps hold of him, pins his arms to his sides and holds him until he falls silent, until the Mark’s glow fades and his eyes roll into the back of his head.

Cas checks his pulse again, beating, rapidly, like he’s just been in a fight, and lays him out on the bed.

Sam runs his hands through his hair, a nervous gesture. Hearing about this is one thing, actually seeing it is completely different. More violent, more terrifying.

“Well, shit.”

Cas gives him a look that says, _the entire spectrum of human communication, and that’s what you come up with._

Sam’s sticking with it. Over a million words in the English language, and those are the two that best describe their situation. Best describe most of the situations they find themselves in. And isn’t that a depressing fucking thought.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is later in the day than usual. I was watching the election debate so I am a) angry and b) drunk.  
> No one can watch Nigel Farage _and_ David Cameron on their TV without a stiff drink in hand.
> 
> I will recheck this tomorrow when I'm sober to make sure no errors have slipped through from my reverse Hemingway, but it should be fine.

Dean wakes up slowly – eyes gummed and sticky. He can’t see very well out of the right one, but that could be anything. A lot of people get bleary eyed when they wake up, no big deal. It’s probably just a coincidence that it’s the same eye he dreamed he lost. Yeah, total coincidence. Very fucking likely.

He sits up and blinks rapidly, trying to clear the sleep gunk, starts when Cas touches him on the arm.

“Shit, sorry.”

Cas waves the apology away, coming around to sit in front of Dean, cross legged.

“You don’t have to apologise. I startled you.”

Dean shrugs and lets Cas kiss away the lingering traces of the nightmare. Cas takes the lead for a few moments, but then he pulls back and Dean follows him, slowly turns them around so that Cas is the one leaning against the headboard, Dean kneeling over his outstretched legs. Cas groans into the kiss as Dean lifts his hands up to his face, bracketing it. He brushes his thumb against the smooth skin there, idly wonders what it’d be like to feel stubble.

Then he remembers the last few times he’s seen Cas with stubble and thinks that no, this is better from his point of view. Maybe not from Cas’s, though. Jimmy was always clean shaven. Maybe Cas would like to take some ownership of his face, like he’s started taking ownership of the clothes that frame his body. Maybe not, though.

Dean lets his hands drop from Cas’s face, down to his chest. Cas catches them, pulls them away and breaks the kiss.

“If you think it’s that easy to get away without talking to me, Dean, you’re wrong. “

“We can talk after.” He pleads, knowing that they won’t, pulling out of Cas’s grip and trailing his hands down Cas’s chest, to just brush at the dark trail of hair leading down to his crotch.

Cas moans, and Dean thinks he’s won, but then then his expression flips, too quickly for the noise to have been genuine. Cas snorts, one eyebrow raised, and pointedly removes Dean’s hands from where they’d been wandering.

Dean makes a disappointed noise, leaning down to grab his rumpled t-shirt from the floor – the bunker is far too cold to be sitting around half naked if nothing fun is about to come out of it.

“So?” Cas prompts

Dean sighs grumpily, but he acquiesces.

 “I wandered around for quite a while before anything found me, some B-movie reject, I killed it-”

“You killed something?”

“Wow, don’t sound _too_ surprised. I am a hunter.”

Cas whacks him on the shoulder.

“That’s not what I meant – I was going to ask how the Mark reacted to that, did it send you on a rampage?”

“Uh, no, not really.”

“What do you mean _not really_?”

“It didn’t really react at all.”

“At all?” Cas echoes, surprised.

“What? That’s your _'this is a significant development’_ squint.”

“I don’t squint.” Cas’s eyes narrow to slivers.

“And now that’s your angry squint.” Dean grins cheekily.

“I don’t – anyway. These dreams are affected by your reality – when I tried to bring you back with my grace-”

“I saw lightning and then the wall of our room.”

“Exactly. So then why-”

“Why doesn’t the Mark of Cain flare up when I fight something?”

“It doesn’t make sense.” Cas snaps.

Dean doesn’t take it to heart. Cas is angry with himself, his own lack of knowledge, not with Dean.

“Since when does any of our shit make sense.”

Cas is disinclined to agree. 

“Our shit makes sense according to its own rules. This doesn’t seem to abide by any supernatural laws or patterns I can think of. One minute you’re dreaming of murder and bloodshed, the next your dreams start to mutate into this forest where you either die or get injured – I’m assuming you died this time?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

Dean’s tone is flat, suspicious. He can tell by the slightly shifty look in Cas’s eye that something is going on here that he doesn’t know about, and he’s prepared to get really fucking pissed about it.

Cas nearly lies, nearly tries to sweep the comment aside as a chance remark. He doesn’t, because he remembers other times he lied to Dean, the damage he thought was irreparably set between them.

“Dean, you were dead.”

“Yeah, in a dream.” He snorts, sounding more dismissive than he feels. 

“Here too.”

“But-”

“You were dead. I don’t know how long for, it felt like hours, Sam might be able to tell you.”

Dean wants to speak, but he can tell by the way Cas pauses that he’s gathering the courage to say something else, so he waits.

“I think you might have died the previous time, too.”

Dean’s caught on the fence between fury and fear now, unsure of which way he’ll tip.

“I wasn’t sure. You stopped breathing, I was going to try and resuscitate you, but then the Mark started glowing and you opened your eyes, I convinced myself I imagined it, or that it was a trick of my failing senses.”

“But this time?” Dean can see where this is headed.

“This time you were definitely gone. No heartbeat, Sam can confirm. You were dead, and the Mark brought you back.”

“But the last time the Mark brought me back, it brought me back a demon.”

“I know.”

“This, you’re right. This doesn’t make a fucking bit of sense.”

“I’m sorry, Dean. I should have told you straight away, I hoped it was nothing.”

“Well, at least we can call off the hunt for a fucking therapist now.”

“I still think-”

“Don’t, Cas. I’m trying not to be pissed at you for keeping this from me, don’t rile me up.”

Cas doesn’t back down.

“I don’t give a shit if you’re angry at me as long as you’re safe. A therapist might help. We don’t _know._ That’s the crux of the problem here. We don’t know _anything_ about it, so we can’t rule _anything_ out.

Dean pushes himself up off the bed. Cas makes to follow but Dean stops him.

“Just, just give me five minutes to fucking process this on my own, okay. Then we can fucking talk about this shit.”

 

*

 

He doesn’t get his five minutes. He tries to push past Sam, definitely not on the way to the bottle of whiskey he has stashed away just in case. Instead he gets grabbed in one of Sam’s gigantic fucking paws, the other thrusting a book that looks like it should only be studied in moisture-less rooms with special gloves and masks on, in front of his face.

 “Out my way, Sam.”

“Dean, no, stop. I found something relevant – and you’re right, maybe, if this is what’s causing it, a therapist wouldn’t have helped.”

Dean stops trying to pull away, fully ready to be vindicated.

“It says here that there are certain supernatural items and phenomena that have proximity effects on people-”

“Have you been awake all this time, Sam?” Cas interrupts, because of course he couldn’t just do what Dean said and stay in the room, leave him be. He knows Dean’s first instinct is to stew in his own juices and he’s got it into his head that this is A Bad Thing and therefore can sometimes tend towards being a right annoying clingy fucker. Which, if Dean wasn’t still deciding whether to be really fucking pissed off with him, he would admit is probably a good thing.

“Maybe, but it doesn’t matter. I found something, something important.”

He pauses like he’s waiting to be interrupted again, but Dean and Cas behave themselves, for once.

“So you know there are supernatural items that have like proximity effects, and those that need to be touched to do whatever they do, well, here there’s a few lines talking about exceptions to those rules – times when that stuff has a more dramatic effect. Like when a person is already weakened by something else.”

Cas can see Dean starting to bristle, mentally begs Sam to cut through the babble and just spit it out before Dean gets so insulted he takes a long drive down a short road, vanishes off into the wilderness in the real world as well as his dreams.

“Something tearing at the fabric of your soul, maybe, something making you already fight and defend yourself on one front, and leaving you vulnerable to other attacks.”

Cas catches on immediately, nodding.

“Something so big and old and powerful that not only does it hurt in the way it was made to, but it also lowers the barriers for other things.”

“You’re saying the Mark is making me weak.” Dean says, coolly.

“He’s saying nothing of the sort.” Cas snaps back. “He’s saying you’re under a lot of demonic trauma and you’re in one of the largest magical archives known to mankind. It’s like asking someone with the flu to live in a leaky biochemical lab.”

Dean’s instinct is to snap and fight and rail, but it’s not what he wants to do. He’s scared. According to Cas he has died, twice, in what he thinks, in what he hopes, is the real world. But then if he’s dying in both does it even fucking matter? If dying in one means the same happens in another does it even fucking matter which is technically real and which is not. Dead is fucking dead, even for him.

 And okay he’s coming back, but there’s a cost. Always a fucking cost. ‘Cause he remembers every second of those dreams, the bits he tells Cas and the bits he doesn’t. He remembers dying, and he remembers what comes after. He remembers what he comes back as, and he remembers what it is that brings him back. Every death is a foothold for the demon in him, a grip from which it can pull itself a step closer to the surface, an inch closer to inhabiting his skin. He doesn’t know how to cope with that.

He knows how to die for a cause, he isn’t sure how _not_ to die for one.

 

*

 

Cas comes and finds him a few hours later, having given him a chance to cool down. He’s worried and clingy, but he knows Dean well enough to recognise that there are some boundaries, some times when all the love and care in the world don’t mean shit. So he respects Dean’s need to be alone, like the good, dutiful, whatever the fuck he is — because calling him a boyfriend makes them sound about 12 and he’s not fucking doing it so fuck off.

“This doesn’t make you weak.” Cas kisses the words into the curve of Dean’s neck.

Dean knows that, would know that if he was in his right mind, but he isn’t. There’s something scraping across the inside of his skull like sandpaper, rubbing him away and leaving a raw and bloody mess of fear and self-doubt and hurt simmering away.

It tells him that Cas’s words are wrong, whispers to him that he knows, down in the fabric of his being, in the deepest pits and trenches that make up Dean Winchester’s unpleasant underbelly, that this isn’t something he’s allowed to accept. He’s fucked up and wrong and shit and worthless and he’s letting everyone down, ruining everything.

But he’s also tired, and edgy, and desperately craving affection. Desperately craving Cas’s affection, more specifically. So he allows himself to be caressed, by tender hands and kind words, for a little while, until the itching inside his skull gets too much, escapes onto his tongue and spits out something toxic.

“It does, though. I’m supposed to be the one holding us together. If I can’t do that, what’s the point of me?”

Cas tries to mask the flinch, the honest to god hurt flashing in his eyes, but Dean still sees it. And shit, there it is again, now he’s gone and upset Cas too. He’s fucking incapable of doing a single thing right.

And Cas doesn’t say “you didn’t mean that, Dean.” Because he does, and it doesn’t matter if he won’t mean it tomorrow. It doesn’t matter that this is just a dark mood, increasingly frequent but still not the whole. It doesn’t matter that tomorrow he’ll look back on this vulnerable, self-doubting husk with shame, pity.

He’s hurting, and Cas doesn’t know how to deal with it, is still so new to real and vivid human emotions. He tries, though, settles them into a comfortable position, curls his hand gently into Dean’s hair.

Dean doesn’t try and fight him, or bat him away. He stays, lets himself be touched. He’s still tense, Cas knows he’s not going to be able to ease that, no matter what he does. He tries anyway, draws the fingers of his other hand gently over Dean’s brow, whispers, “you are more to me than the sum of your function.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t leave either. It’s a small victory, but at least it is one.

 

*

 

Having Cas there helps. After a while he seems to tire of the silence, or maybe he just realises that sitting here in the semi dark with only his own thoughts to stew in is not going to be healthy for Dean, is part of what put him in this mood in the first place. He starts to talk, about the places he’s seen, about things which are nothing to do with dreams or forests or nightmares. He talks about the urban sprawl of New York, he talks about bees, he talks about the most obscure, pointless fragments of pop culture that are nestled in his head, spends a few hours explaining the entire plot of some weird Spanish soap, slipping into the wrong language a couple of times and being forced to backtrack and explain in a tongue that Dean is more than tourist-fluent in.

And Dean loves him for it, he really, truly fucking does.

He tells him that, and Cas smiles.

“I know.” He says, and Dean actually loses his shit, all traces of his bad mood swept under the rug for now, to be unearthed at a later, hopefully a lot fucking later, date.

“You, I can’t fucking believe you fucking, you haven’t even, you, no. You can’t. No.”

Cas snorts, half amusement, half relief.

“I can’t what, Dean?”

“You can’t say that! You haven’t even watched the film – and no it doesn’t fucking count before you say anything!”

Sam chooses that moment to pop his head around the door.

“Uh, I made lunch.”

Dean assesses the look on his face carefully, decides it’s not an _I’ve cooked food to trap you into having a conversation_ expression and decides fuck it. Dinner time.

 

*

 

Lunch doesn’t go exactly as Sam planned. Not that he’d been planning an ambush, but, well, okay. That was exactly what he’d planned. Except every time he opens his mouth to try and ask Dean something, or suggest something they could do to help him, Cas goes and fucking kicks him in the shins.

Not regular-people kicks either. Fucking angelic strength, please stop I would like to one day be able to walk upon these legs, kicks. It gets so bad that he texts Cas.

_Stop!_

_You first._

_We need to talk about this!_

_Not now_

“I know what you’re both doing.” Dean throws down his fork, for emphasis. “And I want no fucking part of it.”

He takes his plate to the bedroom, slamming the door shut. If they want to fucking talk about him, go ahead. He just wants to have his goddamn pasta in peace.

 

*

 

He hears Cas walk past the door three or four times in the space of an hour before he finally gets annoyed, shouts out, “either stop pretending to coincidentally walk by and fuck off or come in.”

He comes in. Of course he does.

“You been making decisions without me again?”

“You didn’t want to be involved.”

Dean grunts.

“So, is this where you come to ship me off somewhere while you and Sam do the real work?” Dean asks bitterly, staring at the walls, the floor, anywhere but Cas.

“No.” Cas replies, tipping Dean’s chin up with two fingers so that their eyes meet.

“We did a bit of research and, if it’s okay with you, we’re going to ward your room with everything we’ve got – maybe move you to one a little further form the archive, if that’s okay?”

The knowledge that they’re not actually making decisions for him, that they’re asking, makes Dean more amenable.

“I like my room.” He grumbles.

“I know. It’s just until we get all of this sorted.”

“Fine.” Dean sighs dramatically, “but you’re moving all my crap.”

“ _Our_ crap.”

“Well obviously you’re moving your own shit. I did assume you were coming with me.”

“Bold assumption. I only moved in here because it’s nearer the kitchen.”

“You don’t even eat.”

Cas shrugs.

“I like the kitchen.”

“You are a strange, strange celestial being, you know that.”

“I like watching you cook.”

“Whoa there, creeper.”

Cas shrugs again, sitting down on the bed next to Dean, thighs touching.

“You always look so happy when you cook – I enjoy watching.”

Dean thinks about taking the easy route – the snappish joke – what, don’t I look happy normally? He restrains himself.

“Thanks, I guess.”

Cas shrugs it off. It’s not something he feels he has to be thanked for.

“I could teach you how – to  cook, I mean, if you wanted.”

Dean offers, realising as he does just what he’s said, expecting Cas to politely decline. He’s an angel, he doesn’t eat, why the hell would he want to learn something as dumb and human as how to cook?

“I’d like that.”

“Oh. Um, I mean, great. When d’ya wanna, shall I?”

Cas laughs. He hasn’t seen Dean this flustered since the first time they kissed.

“If you’re hungry we could start now. It’s been a while since lunch.”

“Yeah, yeah. Good. Unless you need to-”

Cas knows exactly what he means, heads him off.

“Sam is currently warding the room furthest from the magical artefacts, just in case you want to move, there’s nothing useful we can do until then.”

“Excellent.”

Cas lets Dean lead him into the kitchen, following a half step behind, eyes tracing over Dean’s figure, lingering on his hips and ass.

Dean turns around, catches him.

“Stop objectifying the cook you perv.”

Cas grins and pulls him in for a kiss with a little bit of bite to it.

“Uh-uh. You said you wanted to learn. You’re gonna learn. And if you pay attention and do what you’re told, I might even reward you later.”

Cas lets him go immediately and it makes Dean laugh, starting off small and building up to hysterics at the matching grin on Cas’s face.

Is he worried, yes, of course he is. Is that going to suck the joy out of every single second of his life, no, fuck it. Something supernatural, suspicious and probably very bad is happening. Welcome to just another day in his fucking life.

Now, he’s going to teach Cas how to cook, then he’s going to watch as his angelic squeeze carries all their worldly goods across the length of the bunker – hopefully with plenty of gratuitous bending and stretching. After that he’s going to have to reward him for all his hard work, loudly, and messily, and then he’s going to collapse in bed and drift off into blissful, fucked out sleep, and when he wakes up, he’s going to be fine, because he always is.

And he has to keep telling himself that, because otherwise what’s the fucking point.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY IT'S LATE. The bank holiday fucked me right up, I've been behind myself ever since. This one is like twice as long as the other chapters though, so there's that. Also this chapter has porn - don't say I never treat you. Enjoy.

“Dude, you’ve been chopping those onions for like, an actual fucking eternity. Any chance of getting them over here soon?”

Cas grunts in reply. Wow. Rude. Dean sighs his long-suffering sigh and goes over to see what the holdup is.

He finds Cas comparing different chunks of onion against one even cube, deftly shaving bits off until they almost perfectly match. Dean laughs at him, earning an irritated frown, but still not managing to pull Cas’s attention from his ingredients.

“Dude, they don’t have to be _exactly_ perfect.”

“The recipe _you_ wrote down, because _you_ said it’s easier to learn with a reference sheet, said equal sized pieces.”

“I didn’t mean to the last millimetre.”

Cas scowls up at him and Dean laughs, comes up behind him and lays his hands over Cas’s on the knife.

“Like this.” He says, as he guides Cas’s motions, cuts up the rest of the onions in a quicker, more approximate fashion.

“They just need to be around the same size so some don’t cook too fast – leave you with half your crap raw and half of it burned.”

“Well you could have written that down in your instructions.”

“It’s pretty common sense, if you’ve cooked before.”

“Which I haven’t.”

“Which you haven’t.” Dean agrees, trying not to laugh.

Cas dials up the murder stare.

“I thought you were going to teach me to cook – I already know how to cut things.”

“At a pace previously unknown to sloths, maybe.”

Cas narrows his eyes – gets that look, the one that means that Dean is either in immediate mild physical peril, or Cas is going to save it up and hand him his ass later on, when they’re in bed together.

Cas’s hand twitches underneath his and that’s all the warning Dean gets before suddenly the knife is discarded and he’s being tickle-wrestled to the ground.

Cas doesn’t even pretend to give him a chance. He topples him, pulls off one of his shoes and clamps his thighs around Dean’s flailing leg as he kicks and struggles and does everything within his power to prevent Cas from touching his foot.

This is, of course, the moment that Sam chooses to wander into the room.

“Keep your gross sex games away from the kitchen, YOU ANIMALS.”

He yells at the ceiling, doing an abrupt about turn and fucking off as quickly as possible.

Cas doesn’t relent, finally getting his grip on Dean’s bucking foot, pulling off the sock and dragging his fingernails up and down it until Dean is yelping and screaming.

“Uncle! Uncle! I give in! Let me up!”

Cas considers for longer than is good sportsmanship and then relents, allowing Dean to stand, clutching his stomach, wheezing and gasping.

“I thought we agreed using your super strength wasn’t fair.” He chokes out.

Cas shrugs.

“I can’t exactly turn it off. And you were misbehaving – you needed to be _punished_ somehow.”

Cas trails over the word ‘punished’, wrapping his tongue around it and dragging it out. Dean groans, fingers drifting down to brush lightly over his crotch.

“Dude. Not fair. You’re not allowed to get all sexy bossy bastard when I’m trying to cook.”

That is, of course, the wrong thing to say.

“I’m not _allowed_ am I?”

Cas’s glare dials up to full, dangerous smirk, one hand snaking forward to cup Dean’s hip possessively, the other up to his mouth, thumb brushing over his lips, which part slightly as he whines.

And then Dean reaches for a spatula on the counter behind him, uses it to rap Cas’s knuckles.

“Down, boy. I’m teaching you to cook, even if I _literally_ die of blue balls in the meantime.”

Cas pouts, but he does what Dean asks. He’s good like that, for some things.

“You still haven’t explained why I’m chopping things and not actually helping you cook.” He grumbles.

“The chopping is an important part of the process, you lazy little shit. And also, onions make me cry and I don’t want to ruin the gruff, manly image you have of me.”

Dean catches Cas’s almost laugh.

“Oh yeah? I see how it is? Well, _someone_ clearly never wants to have rough, sweaty, man-sex ever again.”

Cas does laugh now. The likelihood of Dean Winchester abstaining from sex for a prolonged period of time seems about as likely as Cas deciding to up and return to the angelic host. He might do it one day, but he’d need a really good fucking reason, and also one of them might be dead.

“I’m breaking up with you.”

“Do I still get to sleep in your bed?”

“Yeah. You’re not allowed to touch me though.”

“That’ll be pretty hard, sleeping with the human octopus.”

“Uh, I think you’ll find that’s you.” He chucks Cas a packet of bacon. “Chop that up, _roughly_ even pieces. Quick as you like.”

Cas opens the packet, tips out the bacon and gets to work.

“Of course, Dean. I’m the one who ‘sleep snuggles’. The angel who doesn’t sleep.”

“Hey, man, own your kinks.”

“You think cuddling is a kink? I feel bad for your boyfriend.” He snarks back.

“Don’t use that word.”

“Sorry. I feel bad for your bed partner? Person you frequently sleep with? That angel who deals with all your bullshit?”

“Boyfriend makes us sound like 13.” Dean whines.

Cas opens his mouth to reply but Dean beats him to it.

“I swear to god if the words ‘mental age’ come out of your mouth I am going to wank in the shower twice a day and leave you high and dry for the next _three months_.”

“Will you be thinking of me?”

Dean chucks a head of cabbage at him. It hits Cas square in the chest.

“Ow.”

“You don’t feel pain?”

“Actually-

“You don’t feel pain from _that._ ”

”Reflex. Another leftover from when I was human.”

Cas chucks the cabbage back, eyeing Dean suspiciously.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“Uh, put it in the food, genius.”

“I thought you were allergic to greenery.”

“Yeah, well, Sam’s got me on this stupid healthy diet. Every meal has to have at least one vegetable in it. At least this way I just chuck it in and you can barely taste it.”

He sets about hacking the cabbage with what can only be described as unnecessary brutality. Like it’s personally offended him or something.

Cas finishes the bacon and delivers it over.

“Is that it? Am I done?”

“I thought you wanted to learn how to cook?”

“I wanted to learn how to _cook_ -”

“Not how to chop. Yeah, yeah, okay. Smartass. Well, luckily for you we have all our ingredients assembled now. Boring bit over.”

“Good.”

“Remind me to never teach you anything ever again.”

“Fine by me.”

“Wow. I’m actually offended.”

“That was the intention.”

Dean crosses his arms, doesn’t uncross them until Cas cracks, grins a big goofy grin and enfolds Dean in his arms, mouthing at the side of his neck.

“I’m sorry.”

“Damn right.”

“I’ll be a good student from now on.”

“Okay, well that’s just going too far.”

“I’ll be marginally less of an asshole the next time you do something for me.”

“Sounds more like you.”

He pushes Cas away before he can move from nuzzling to biting – because he’s a horny little opportunist and Dean does actually want to eat tonight.

“Right you, pan out of the cupboard, drizzle a bit of oil on it and whack the gas on.”

“What temperature?”

“Medium heat.”

Cas does as he’s told, follows Dean’s instructions, waits for it to start sizzling and then chucks the bacon on. It spits at him and he scowls at Dean.

“You didn’t tell me it was going to fight back.”

“This is why we never cook bacon naked.”

Cas squints, takes a moment to process and then squirms.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve-”

“You make that mistake once, you never make it again.”

“You are gross.”

“And yet you still love me.”

“Hmm. Debateable.”

He receives a swift whack to the head.

“Onions next.”

“Are they going to attack me too?”

“Not unless you have viable tear ducts.”

The onions get chucked in, then a couple of cans of tomatoes, ground beef, stock, all the green herbs they can muster and some cayenne pepper. When Cas goes to grab the decimated heap of cabbage he squints at it suspiciously.

“There seems like a lot less cabbage here than before, Dean.”

“Hmm. Well, half of it got accidentally knocked on the floor when you weren’t looking and had to go in the bin. Damn shame.”

“That’s very wasteful of you.”

“I’ve saved the world; it can afford me a bit of leeway for some cabbage.”

“Al Gore would be ashamed.”

“How do you – nevermind.”

It’s an aborted discussion that they have at least once every week, Dean forgetting that Cas actually understands all of his references now. He kind of likes it, even if Metadouche was responsible. Dean communicates mainly in lines taken from other, fictional people – it’s easier than laying your own heart bare, using the same words from someone else, so if it falls flat you can pretend it’s a joke – and it’s a pleasant change that Cas now speaks his language.

They fool around for a little bit while they’re waiting for it to cook, nothing too serious or gross and unhygienic. All hands kept strictly above belts and over clothes.

The timer goes off, startling them out of their total absorption. Dean grabs a spoon, dips it in and tastes it, repeats the motion and holds it out for Cas, beaming from ear to ear. Cas leans forward and slurps it off.

It just tastes like molecules.

Something must show on his face, because Dean frowns.

“You can’t taste it, can you?”

“No.”

“Shit!”

Dean experiences a sudden burst of temper, flings the spoon across the room, winces at the clatter it makes as it lands.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I just, kinda forgot, for a second.”

“I nearly lied,” Cas admits, “but I thought that’d make you more worried.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, you don’t have to lie to make me feel better.” He sighs, runs his hands through his hair and adopts a more jovial tone. “But, hey. At least you know what to do now.”

“I do.”

“Even if it’s pretty pointless.” He can’t help adding.

“I can try cooking for you and Sam.”

“’Spose. Although it’ll be pretty hard to season if you can’t taste it.”

“You’ll never know whether I’ve accidentally fucked up or if you were annoying me and I meant to put eight tablespoons of salt in your dinner.” Cas says absently, stirring the pot.

Dean laughs.

“You’re actually a diabolical genius and I am afraid for my taste buds.”

 

*

 

Sam wanders back into the kitchen, drawn by the smell. Something rich and delicious and hopefully worth the gallons of eye-bleach that he’s going to need if it turns out that Cas and Dean are still being utterly gross human beings in there.

They’re actually not, for once, although Cas has a look in his eye that makes Sam mildly uncomfortable. Like please, stop looking at my brother like you’re about to devour him right in front of me.

He coughs before they can get any more 18-rated and Dean turns to him, huge fucking grin on his face.

“Cas made dinner.”

“Cool. Smells good.”

“You wait until you taste it.” Dean gets out two bowls, ladles them full to the brim. He makes an apologetic face at Cas, who just smiles fondly and sits down with them anyway.

He nicks a forkful off Dean’s plate, more to annoy him than because he’s going to enjoy it. Molecules are just molecules. He holds it in his mouth for a while, concentrates hard, tries to appreciate the food in a shallow, human way. The texture, the flavour – not the atoms and molecules and history of the things that were slaughtered and picked and ground up to create the dish.

He thinks, for a brief second, that he tastes something spicy, but then it’s gone.

He must react somehow though, because Dean squints up at him over his bowl.

“Y’kay, man?” He mumbles through a mouthful – concern overriding what few table manners he has.

“I thought – for a second – that I could taste something, something spicy.”

Dean grins at him. “That’ll be the chillies.”

Then he processes.

“Hey, wait, are you tasting food again? Should we be worried?”

“Oh, no.” He squints, embarrassed. “It’s, I just.. I was _trying_ to taste it. I wanted to properly appreciate the first thing we cooked together.”

Dean gives him this look, sympathy, love, pity, all bundled up in a sad little smile.

“That sucks, man.”

“Why don’t we freeze it.” Sam pipes up. “Just in case you’re ever human again.”

He doesn’t mention that the next time Cas is human, he’s likely to be dying. And if that’s happening, the last thing they’ll be doing is knocking around the bunker for long enough to defrost some pasta. Dean’ll be out there, moving heaven and earth and probably purgatory too, sacrificing himself down to the last cell scraping to stop it.

They all choose not to think about that.

“That’s, thank you, Sam.”

“You’re getting really fucking sentimental in your old age.” Dean jokes.

Cas hums in reply, finally swallowing the mouthful he’s been swishing around his gums. There’s no point wishing his life away, because that’s what being able to taste it would be, currently. A tangible reminder of the countdown clock floating over his head.

Which is an unpleasant, morbid thought.

He decides to distract himself by bothering Dean, slips off his shoe and begins to trail his foot up Dean’s leg, along the inside of his thigh and coming to rest on his crotch. Dean refuses to make eye contact, knuckles going white as he grips on tight to his fork. Cas presses down more firmly, tries to hide a smile as Dean starts, drops his cutlery.

“You okay?” Sam asks, absently.

“Fine.” Dean squeaks, Cas’s foot still firmly in place. “Just bit right into a chilli.”

Cas smirks, releases the pressure ever so slightly, just to see the relief on Dean’s face. It’s not going to be there for long.

He removes his foot entirely, long enough to let Dean think he’s going to get some respite, trails it up and down his leg. Once he gets back to Dean’s upper thigh he curls his toes, digs them into the meat, just to see if he can get a reaction.

Dean doesn’t so much as flinch.

Game. On.

Cas looks Dean directly in the eye as he returns his foot to its previous resting place. Dean gulps, barely visibly, but it’s there. Dean knows that Cas isn’t actually going to crush his junk – he likes it far too much to go and ruin it. But that doesn’t mean he can help the tiny spark of trepidation for little Dean at that terrifying look on Cas’s face right now.

He starts to increase the pressure again slowly, pressing harder and harder until Dean lets out another little squeak and flushes bright red. Sam gives him a funny look, but he doesn’t question it this time. His brother is a fucking weirdo moron. At this point he’s just learned to roll with it.

Dean knows this isn’t where the game ends. He braces himself, tries to think unsexy thoughts, but that’s hard when Cas has him pinned in that intense sex-glare, completely composed while Dean’s trying not to flinch.

He can’t even retaliate. His work boots are back on – both securely fastened against any further tickle attacks – and he can’t pull them off without being really, really obvious.

Cas lets up the weight and Dean pulls a quick breath of relief which turns to a cut off gasp when Cas starts to knead him through his jeans. He’s using just the right amount of pressure and god, it feels amazing. Having someone’s crusty feet all up in his junk wouldn’t usually be hot, at all, but this is Cas. Cas who doesn’t sweat, or get athlete’s foot, who probably doesn’t even get lint stuck between his toes.

_Unsexy thoughts, unsexy thoughts, unsexy thoughts, OH GOD, too late._

Cas feels Dean’s cock start to thicken under his touch and he sniggers as Dean lets out another little whine.

“Enjoying yourself, Dean?”

He looks at Cas with wide eyes, doesn’t trust himself to speak. 

Sam looks between them both, perplexed – the spaghetti isn’t even that hot, so why the hell is Dean turning honest to god red just from eating it?

When it clicks, it clicks.

He grabs his bowl and retreats to his bedroom, muttering “gross, gross, gross, fucking gross” under his breath.

Dean waits until Sam is out of the room and then throws himself to his feet. Cas has just enough time to register the noticeably growing bulge in Dean’s pants, and then the table is being pushed out of the way and he suddenly has a lap full of horny Winchester.

“You fuckin’ asshole” he gasps against Cas’s mouth, but he’s grinning.

He reaches down to Cas’s crotch to try and get him to join the party, finds him already half-way there.

“You get off on that, huh? Watching me struggle?”

Cas just grins at him, all shark-like menace, and bites at Dean’s lower lip. When he lets go Dean dives in with a dirty kiss, wraps his arms around Cas’s neck and starts to grind down steadily. Cas makes a rough, decadent noise of approval, and then he slips his hands under Dean’s ass, grabbing great handfuls and massaging it beneath his fingers as he lifts him up, strong arms supporting Dean’s thighs as he wraps his legs around Cas’s body.

Cas carries Dean over the threshold of their room, shuts the door and backs him up into it. Dean groans, leans his head back against the wood as Cas mouths at his neck, bites and worries the skin between his teeth until there’s a mark.

When Cas takes the lead, as he has so far, he’s rough. He likes to pick Dean up, throw him around, scratch and bite and pin him against walls – all with this ferocious look of _need,_ an eternity of finely honed focus all tuned in on Dean’s body. And Dean loves it, he does. He loves that Cas likes to just wreck him, that he still has the angelic strength to just pick him up, slam him against a wall and fucking nail him.  

But, well, as much as he loves a good, rough fuck, sometimes he wants something else. Something more.

Sometimes you want to look the person you love in the eyes as you trail your fingers and tongue slowly down their body. You want to take them apart in achingly intimate fashion, until they’re desperate, trembling, destroyed by your touch.

That’s how Dean likes to top.

And that’s what he wants now.

“Cas, stop.” He whispers.

Cas stops, sucks in a deep breath and holds it as he lowers Dean to the ground. He rests his forehead on Dean’s shoulder and mumbles an apology into his t-shirt.

“What did I do? Are you okay?”

Dean cups Cas’s face in his hands, laughs softly.

“Nothing, Cas. Nothing at all. Just, this time, I wanna take care of you – is it cool with you if I, y’know…” he fumbles for the word, settles weakly on “pitch?”

He wonders if Cas will argue, recoil or try and persuade, but he just smiles a big, gappy grin, relieved, happy. Dean doesn’t want to stop, Cas hasn’t done something wrong or upset him. He just wants to be the one in control this time

“Of course. Whatever you want.”

Dean cups his hands around Cas’s face, kissing him tender and deep. He walks him slowly backwards, towards their bed. Cas’s hands hang limp at his sides and Dean smiles into the kiss, mumbles at him, “you’re allowed to touch me, dickhead.”

Cas brings his hands up to carefully skate at Dean’s ribs, tentative, like he’s asking for permission. Dean lays his hands over Cas’s, carries on kissing him, thoroughly exploring the inside of his mouth, running his tongue over his teeth, skating gently along the roof of his mouth.

Dean starts to slowly unbutton Cas’s shirt with one hand, the other cupping the back of his neck.  Cas shucks his shirt and Dean breaks the kiss, pushes at his shoulders gently, encouraging him to fall down onto the bed. He does, props himself up on his elbows while Dean inches his pants off him, strips himself quickly naked and presses himself against Cas’s lithe frame.

Dean starts at his neck, mouthing gently over the skin there, nuzzling into the join of Cas’s shoulder, while his fingers trace soft patterns along the muscles of his chest. He nips at Cas’s collarbone, not hard enough to bruise, just enough to tease, works his way ever so slowly down to his chest with playful licks and bites. He runs his tongue over one nipple, closes his mouth around it and sucks. Cas arches up off the bed a little, chasing the sensation but nowhere near the trembling wreck Dean wants him to be.

He moves back up to kiss Cas, one hand trailing up his thigh with feather light touches, getting close to his cock but never near enough to satisfy.

“Dean.” Cas whispers into his mouth when he breaks the kiss, eyes half closed, lips parted.

He doesn’t reply; too busy nipping gently at the shell of Cas’s ear. It doesn’t seem to be doing much for him though, so he quickly moves on.

He kisses a soft, slow trail down Cas’s ribs, to his stomach. He nuzzles into the firm muscle there, sucking and licking tenderly at it before he moves on to one of Cas’s frim hip bones. He runs his tongue over and over it, scraping over the other one with just a touch of fingernail as he feels Cas twitch and buck minutely underneath his touch.

“Please.” He moans above Dean, fingers coming to card gently through his hair.

Dean grins, takes pity on him. Sort of.

He fits his hand loosely over Cas’s hips, positions his mouth above his cock and licks a long, firm strip up it. Cas tries to buck up, but Dean pushes him back, flat against the bed, follows up that lick with another, and another, tongue swirling around the head, tasting the pre-come beading there.  

Then he lets go, pulls away and grins at Cas softly.

“Stay there a moment for me, baby.” He fumbles the lube out from the bedside table, chucks it down on the bed next to Cas, who’s staring hungrily up at him.

“Flip over for me?” Dean asks, and Cas does, hoping, expecting Dean to start on his ass.

He’s disappointed. Dean climbs back up the bed, pressing deep, tender kisses to the side of Cas’s neck first, licking down to his shoulder blades and nipping at them gently. Cas groans, tries to rut against the sheets, get a little friction, but Dean presses him down with a firm hand.

“Don’t make me kneel on you.”

Cas grunts something into the pillow, but Dean ignores him, moves down and fastens his mouth over Cas’s tailbone, draws his tongue up his back in a long, thick stripe. From there Dean pays attention to each individual knob of his spine, sucking a gentle kiss.

Cas is almost trembling now, each new sensation toeing the line between bliss and agony. He needs, he needs, he needs. He needs this to stop, he needs more. He just needs.

Dean draws it out, pulls Cas taught with sensation until the only thing that exists for him is Dean’s tongue, snaking its way across his body, bringing him to the brink but never quite allowing him to fall over. And then Dean reaches the final bump of his spine, dips down, lower. He pulls the cheeks of Cas’s ass apart gently with his hands, kneads them tenderly, drawing little yelps from Cas, muffled by the pillow he’s biting at.

He licks slowly over Cas’s hole, teases him, getting closer and closer until he finally points his tongue and pushes the tip inside. Cas groans and rolls his hips back, trying to push Dean deeper, chase the sensation, just get _more._

Dean laughs, and the vibration causes Cas to clench around him, pushing Dean out. Dean takes that as a cue to move on, flattens his tongue and licks over his hole, again and again until Cas is shaking, fists gripping tight to the sheets.

Slowly, so Cas won’t realise what he’s doing, Dean reaches for the lube. He rolls it between his fingers for a little bit, warming it up, and then he pulls away.

Cas groans in frustration, and Dean skates the fingers of his clean hand along his ribs, kisses at his shoulder again, and then, slowly, he works one finger inside.

Cas locks up, and for a moment Dean thinks he’s come, is a little disappointed that he’s not going to get to feel that around his cock. Then Cas cants his ass up, trying to get Dean’s finger in deeper, and he sees his cock, still hanging thick and hard between his legs.

Dean adds another finger, stretches him out tantalisingly slowly, until, finally, Cas finds himself desperate enough to beg.

“Please, Dean, please.”

“Hey, it’s okay, babe. One more, yeah, you’re so close.”

He adds another finger, decides to really start playing dirty. He leans his head down, licks around Cas’s clenching hole, points his tongue, slides the tip, just slightly in alongside his fingers. Cas groans.

“Now. I can take it, now, please.”

This wasn’t about getting Cas to beg, this was about drawing every last drop of pleasure out of him, ringing him dry and showing him, in a physical, tactile way, just how much Dean loves him.

He doesn’t think he’s doing too badly.

He finishes stretching Cas out, finally.

“Okay, baby. I wanna do this face to face, okay?”

Cas murmurs some incoherent sounds of agreement, pushes himself up to seated position. Dean smiles lazily at the expression on his face, strung out, star struck, blissful.

Dean guides him up into his lap. Helps Cas to lower himself slowly onto Dean’s cock. After so long, so much waiting and teasing it feels amazing, glorious. Cas stays still for a few moments, savouring the sensation, getting used to feeling so full, the incredible heat. It’s a completely different feeling to being buried in Dean, being impaled, stretched wide around him. He understands why Dean loves this so much. It might be a different kind of pleasure, but it is still just as close to bliss.

He huffs out a little sigh of relief as Dean settles his hands at Cas’s sides, starts to roll his hips. Cas rests his head on Dean’s shoulder and Dean turns, mouths at his neck as he thrusts gently into him. Cas groans, unable to do much more than just ride the crest of sensation.

Dean shifts his hips a little, adjusts their angle, grazes Cas’s prostate. Cas moans, starts to clench around him and Dean knows what that means. He adjusts his angle again, ever so slightly, hones directly in on it and thrusts; once, twice, three times.

Cas howls, head thrown back as all the tender touches, all the build-up and worshipping finally find their outlet. He comes, and as he does he clenches around Dean, pulls him over the edge as well.

Cas falls backwards onto the bed, fucked out, exhausted and blissfully unable to hold his own weight. Dean follows him down. This time neither of them suggests a shower. Cas cheats, screws up his eyes and mojos them clean. Dean doesn’t even tell him off, just pancakes himself flat on top of Cas, mumbles something indecipherable, and retreats from the conscious world.

Cas lies beneath him, not asleep, but as close to it as an angel can get. He’s floating, blissful, trancelike, eyes drifting shut.

 

*

 

Sam, disturbed by the noise in more ways than one, slips out of his bedroom, turns on the light in the hall and carries on to the kitchen. The glow seeps through the gaps in Dean and Cas’s bedroom door and a shaft of light falls over Dean’s broad, muscled back. Illuminates it, and the secret that old, rubbish heating and Dean’s natural tendency to sleep in t-shirts has so far hidden.

Scarring the long, pale skin, slicing between the freckles and half healed wounds and nicks, there is a shape, an echo of the Lichtenberg sprawl that Cas considers one day getting a tattoo of. The black mark which was noticed and then so easily dismissed has moved past being a splinter, has put out roots and branches, made a home under Dean’s skin and spread, still small, but getting bigger every day. From a seed to a sapling it inches outwards, gnarled and twisted.

It’s rooted, under his skin now, and if the forest decides it wants to take Dean tonight, all the wards in the world won’t be able to stop it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Less edited than I would have liked because I was being observed all day at work because I'm having computer issues and they were trying to work out what it was. It's very hard to write when someone is literally standing over you constantly asking you what you're doing and why. (The problem was that I was literally working too fast for the machine to handle, hahaha, which is a great excuse to slack off now and forevermore).
> 
> I'll try and give it a final once over at some point tomorrow, but there won't be any major changes, just tidying up the language so don't feel like you have to wait or anything.
> 
> Let me know what you think :)

He wakes up in a pool of bodily fluids – blood, viscera, what looks likes part of a shin.

So much for the wards, then.

He picks up the shin, for want of a better weapon, and he brandishes it around threateningly, daring anything hidden to come out and get him.

He nearly trips over the carcass on the floor – its familiar – the fish creature. Huh. So he’s back where he left off. Is that a good thing, a bad thing, or a completely irrelevant thing? Who the fuck knows at this point.

He aims himself in the direction of the wolves and starts to run. It’s something to do. He sprints through the undergrowth, leaping over roots and vines. He’s tried being quiet and careful, he’s tried being obtuse and difficult, fuck it, why not try just pegging it to the finish line.

He runs for hours, until the muscles in his thighs start to cramp. Except, he examines it, and he realises they don’t actually hurt, so much as he expects them to hurt. In the waking world he’d long have needed a sit down and maybe a small heart attack. Here, as long as he doesn’t think about it, he’s fine. He doesn’t really dwell too much on the significance of that though, it might be a dream with deadly consequences, but it’s still a dream. His legs aren’t actually moving.

He nearly stacks it a few times, roots tangling at his shoes, thorns and branches flaying his skin. His jacket gets snagged on a branch and as he turns to free it something catches his attention. Sunlight on metal. It’s enough to halt him – it’s the first non-wood or flesh thing he’s seen. He weighs up his options, shrugs – what’s left to lose – apart from, you know, his life and his humanity.

He scans the area for any obvious threat, sees none and advances slowly, brandishing his bone weapon.

When he finally gets close enough to see what it is, he almost cheers. It’s a fucking angel blade, covered in blood and leaves and detritus, but still looking as sharp and deadly as ever.

He’s been pretty much weaponless so far, prey at the mercy of this nightmare forest. Now he’s stumbled across the one thing that’ll elevate him to king of the heap.

So, of course it’s a trap. Not that that’s ever stopped him before. The question is whether he’s willing to risk himself, his life, on the chance that he gets this weapon. He barely gives the question a moment’s pause; he’s fucking sick of dying here.

He pads lightly towards the blade, poised to fling himself to the side or backwards, dodge whatever the fuck is lined up and waiting for him.

He pauses, listens carefully for anything suspicious, but it’s silent. Dead silent. The wolves have stopped howling. Shit, shit, shitshitshit. He knows how this works; he’s been on enough hunts. It’s when the predator goes quiet that it’s at its most deadly.

And then, just because this dumb, perverse dreamscape seems to delight in proving him wrong, tormenting him, the silence breaks.

It doesn’t start slow or build up. It goes from nothing to everything. There’s a sound like the clapping of thunder but it doesn’t stop, doesn’t fade or crescendo, it just hangs, deafening in the air as the ground shakes, starts to rip itself apart. At a distance at first, but spiking jaggedly closer with every passing second. Trees are thrown, not into the crevice but away from it, as if whatever is tearing its way through the earth’s crust can’t bear to be in the presence of life, has to expel it, fling it far into the distance.

Dean throws himself to the side, lands on firm ground and flinches as another noise joins the din. Something howls out from the wound in the earth, screams with such rage and fury and hatred that Dean’s eardrum’s strain under the sound, give way with a muted pop. And now there really is silence.

He keels to the side, dizzy, unbalanced. It takes him a few moments to find his centre, but this isn’t his first perforated ear drum. He rebalances, although now he’s having to devote a significant portion if his attention to just staying in his feet, his automatic processes becoming a little less automatic. Bodes well for whatever the fuck this is about to be.

He’s fairly certain he’s not going to be able to outrun it, the thing is ripping through bedrock like a fucking sheet of paper, once it gets up onto the surface there’ll be no stopping it’s progression. That leaves only one option. The blade.

There’s no time for caution now, something is coming and its footfalls are shaking the earth, rattling up through Dean’s skin and bone and making his teeth chatter and shake.

He flings himself forward, at the blade, crosses his toes and throws up a quick fucking prayer to anyone that may or may not be listening. He grasps the handle just barely, fingers scraping at it, catching at the hilt and tugging it from its resting place.  He comes to a crashing halt against a tree, tucks the blade in tight and settles it in his grip.

His momentum carries him straight past the artfully hidden snare trap that had been waiting, would have caught him if he’d been slow and cautious. He offers a facetious prayer to the god of small mercies. Because hey, he might be about to fight something that has literally torn apart the earth, but at least he’s not doing it with his ass in the air.

Holy fuck, he wishes Cas was here.

 

*

 

Cas is wrenched abruptly from his trance by a pull in the centre of his chest. Dean wants him, Dean _needs_ him, is in enough danger that his want for Cas is tinged with urgency. He doesn’t think, he acts on instinct, or force of habit or whatever you’d call it when an angel learns that he cares more for someone else’s safety than his own. He manifests his blade in the instant it takes him to travel, blinks, confused when he takes in the calm surroundings he ends up in.

And then he realises that he's still in their room, that Dean is asleep and therefore probably having a nightmare. He folds his blade away into whatever pocket dimension it exists in when he isn’t thinking about it, sits on the bed and takes Dean’s hand in his. There’s not much he can actually do for Dean here, anything he does is more comfort to himself really. He wants to try though, doesn’t want to sit there, useless, helpless, while Dean suffers. He knows, now, that Dean doesn’t just care for his utility, his angelic ability to fix. That doesn’t stop him wanting to be that for Dean. That’s what you want for the people you love, to do everything you can to make their lives that little bit more bearable.

 

*

 

The cracks stop an inch away from his feet. Well, there goes the hope that this was all a massive coincidence, then.

From the crater there flies a hooded crow. It strikes more fear into Dean than anything else would – if some great horned or fanged horror had erupted from the earth in thunder of hooves and teeth. He’s faced down gods and monsters, angels and demons. It’s always the smallest, least assuming creature that holds the most danger. You just need to look at their own holy tax accountant to see that.

The crow’s beak is hinged unnaturally wide, throat pulsating as it screams out something that he can’t hear. Almost as if it realises this, it cocks its head to the side, clicks its beak together once, twice, and then it laughs.

He knows it laughs, because it doesn’t laugh out loud. It laughs inside his head. He flinches, pointlessly covers his ears as it cackles.

“Ba-Ba-Badb!”

Dean howls back at it, dives forward and lashes out twice, severing both wings in quick succession. Before it can have a chance to transform or heal itself, he plunges the angel blade into its chest, skewering it clean through.

The laughing doesn’t stop. It echoes, over and over in his head, changing as it does so, resolving into three distinct, but similar, voices. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. Of mother-fucking-course. The wings twitch and writhe, flapping like they’re trying to achieve lift-off while the body stays, speared, on his weapon.

Dean nudges at one of the wings with his foot, contemplates stamping on it as he wonders where his bloodlust has gone. He’s angry and scared, holding a weapon, and the Mark doesn’t seem to give a shit. Every fucking cloud.

He comes to regret his hesitance. The voices in his head shriek triumphantly and the writhing shapes on the ground still. Three feathers, two grey and one black, separate from the body, fall to the floor. They land, quill down, plant themselves in the earth and begin to grow. In size first, and then in shape. The shafts stretch, grow into anthropoid form and the vanes soften, lengthen into long, curled hair.

Before long there are three women standing in front of Dean, but they’re unsettled, shifting. Every time he blinks, or flicks his gaze from one to the other, they change. Rotund at one glance, lithe the next, short and broad shouldered, or tall and weighed down with muscle and fat. Their skin changes too, dark as a crow’s feather, pale as bone, the yellow of an old bruise, cold and grey as an iron blade. The only thing that doesn’t change is their hair – brilliant red, blood-slick.

Dean lunges forward and they dance out of his way, gleeful, smiling with jagged teeth. He realises that although their features might be constantly changing, he can still tell them apart. There’s a quality, bestial, to each of them that doesn’t slip or change with their transformations.

The one that grew from the grey feather still has something of the crow about her – beady eyes and quick darting movements of the head, talonish fingers with yellowed, hooked nails. Of the two who formed from the black feathers, one has an equine grace, movements fluid and controlled, but with raw power waiting just under the surface. The third has a grin like a rabid wolf, bloody spittle dribbling from her lips as she jinks about, lunging and testing him, waiting to see if he’ll break, turn and flee and give her the chase she desires.

He hacks and slashes at them, throws vicious attacks and parries their blows. For a little while he thinks that he’s doing okay, that he’s at least holding his ground, that he has a chance.

It takes him a while to realise that they’re playing with him. They dance out of the way of his blows by millimetres every time, singing now with their mouths and not in his head. He tries to read their lips, but the language isn’t one he recognises. Something old, then, or something forgotten and obscure.

The wolfish one seems to tire of the game first. She reels him in, fastens her teeth around his arm but bites down gently, enough to indent, but not puncture his skin.

He stabs her in the stomach with the angel blade and she looks down, opens her mouth in mock surprise and plants a bloody, slavering kiss on his cheek.

The touch of her spit upon his skin breaks the illusion. The ‘weapon’ he has clutched in his hand is a bracken frond. It pokes at her now ample stomach, bending backwards and snapping as she sucks in air and pushes out her belly.

Dean drops the useless strand of foliage and dives to the side. This _was_ a trap, but it was a far more elaborate one than he ever envisioned.

Weaponless, outmatched, alone and hopeless. For the first time in a long time, Dean Winchester runs. There’s no snapping at his heels, no brush of wings over his head. He glances back over his shoulder and sees the three women leaping, bounding gracefully after him. Flickers of beast now intercut their shifting forms. Wolf eyes, hooked beaks, jagged talons and thundering hooves. He can see them whooping and cheering, can feel the rattling vibrations of their laughter carrying through his bones, and it’s then that he realises that they are hunting him like a medieval king would hunt a boar. An animal just dangerous enough to give them a thrill, but not dangerous enough to do them any actual harm.

Teeth close around his calf and he rolls to the floor. The face of his assailant shifts between woman and wolf, but the pain remains just as bad. He kicks at her, and she just grins back at him through a mouthful of his own blood.

Her sisters – they grew from the same body, it’s the best description he can think of for them – catch up with them moments later, similar grins still fixed on their faces. The wolf holds him still, clawish hands scrabbling at his ribs, while the other others contemplate him. They discuss something in their strange language and then the crow leans over him, grasps his head and holds it steady. She pecks at his face, fastens her shifting beak and mouth over his right eye and applies pressure. She slices through it with a wet pop that renders the pain in his leg laughable in comparison.

She gouges it out, scoops up the jellied mass and tosses it into her mouth like Dean might toss a piece of candy into his own. The squelch when she bites down is nearly as bad as the pain.

The horse, not to be left out, brings a metal booted foot down on his ribcage, giggles as he screams in pain.

He's half blinded, unable to breathe, feels the wolf relax her grip and then crunch down on the bone of his leg, shattering it irreparably.

He’s in agony, but he doesn’t die. The wolf and the horse join hands, start to chant something over his body that causes his wounds to begin to knit together. The crow scolds them, slaps at their arms and forces them to stop. They do, but they do so ungratefully, hissing and spitting at their sister.

The wolf bends down, fastens her jaws around his right arm and tugs, wrenches until the bone splinters off. Dean howls, an agonised scream. It excites the beast-women. They clap and laugh and howl their own noises of delight. The wolf holds out his severed arm to the others and they join hands with it, dance around his body.

His vision dips and fades, finally, almost blissfully, he dies.

 

*

 

Everything is peaceful, and then it’s not. It starts slowly; one of the sigils on the walls begins to glow, a sickly yellow light that somehow illuminates nothing. As if this was some sort of signal, Dean takes a deep, rattling breath, catarrh on the lungs, smokers cough rasp. He doesn’t stop. His lungs rattle and groan, blood trickles out of the corner of his mouth.

Cas watches in horror as the glow spreads from one sigil to the next and Dean’s body starts to convulse, still trying, still failing to draw in air.

“SAM!” He yells, hoping the younger Winchester is a light sleeper. He's already awake, barrels into the room wide-eyed and sweat-slicked. He’d been working out, figured at least one of them should try and keep in fighting shape.

“Hold him down, stop him hurting himself – I’m going to try and bring him around.”

Sam grabs a belt from the bedside, shoves the leather into Dean’s mouth, between his teeth. Satisfied that he isn’t going to bite off his own tongue, Sam flattens his considerable mass over Dean’s frame, does his best to keep him still.

Cas comes at Dean from the side, grasps his head firmly in his hands.

It _burns._

He lets go with an agonised yelp, examines his palms. The skin has melted off, to the bloody, stringy flesh beneath. He folds over, fits them between his knees and grits his teeth against the heat and the pain. He can feel his grace surging, cool, healing, knitting him back together.

All the very well for him, but what about Dean?

Cas approaches more awkwardly this time, grasps the bedsheets and wraps them around his hands, touches Dean again. It still hurts, but it’s bearable. He reaches out to Dean with his grace, and he is stopped. There’s a wall, a barrier of some kind – thornlike but with that incredible heat coming off it.

It’s like trying to stuff his hand through a burning hedgerow, if the branches were doused in holy fire.

Nothing, _nothing_ about this is good.

He keeps trying even as the pain spreads up his arm, to his elbows and further up.

“CAS!”

Sam’s shout brings him back to the room and he lets go. His arms are on fire and it doesn’t feel like regular flames. This is Lucifer’s fire, demonic and angelic corruption working together even as they try to tear each other apart.

Cas tries to tamp out the fire with his hands but it keeps on burning, only quenches when he grabs Dean’s jug of water – for dealing with cracked throats from screaming nightmares – and douses his arms. Relief is instant, blissful. Now he only aches in a dull, itchy way as his beleaguered grace attempts to glue himself back together.

Sam is still pinning Dean to the bed, looking helplessly up at the skin of Cas’s arms as it slowly grows itself back. His jacket and shirt are ruined. Where they haven’t been burned off entirely, they’re cinder blackened and pocked with burn holes. He shrugs them off, gets more water from the bathroom to ensure they stay unlit.

It’s only after he’s left the room and returned again that he notices the hum, insistent, building. The glow is brighter now too, illuminating them all in sallow, sickly hue. The air is tense, fraught. Something has to break – they just have to hope it won’t be Dean.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?” Shouts Sam over the din.

“I DON’T KNOW. SOMETHING BAD, PROBABLY.”

“SHALL WE BREAK THE SIGILS?”

“NO. WE CAN’T RISK IT. FOR ALL WE KNOW THEY’RE THE ONLY THING KEEPING WHATEVER’S GOING ON INSIDE HIM FROM BREAKING OUT.”

Sam bristles at that.

“BUT WHAT ABOUT _DEAN?!”_

 _“_ YOU THINK I’M NOT JUST AS FUCKING WORRIED?” Cas snaps. “FOR ALL WE KNOW THEY’RE THE ONLY THING HOLDING HIM TOGETHER – EVERY TIME I HAVE TRIED TO INTERFERE WITH HIS DREAMS, I HAVE JUST MADE IT WORSE. WE HAVE TO TRUST HIM, THAT HE’S STRONG ENOUGH FOR WHATEVER THIS IS.”

Sam doesn’t respond, attention caught on one, small sigil in the middle of the room. It’s changed hue, started to darken to charcoal, cut through with glowing yellow and red scratches, like a burning ember or coal. Like before, the change spreads to the other sigils, slowly at first and then gaining momentum.

Cas realises just in time, throws himself over Sam and Dean, covers as much of them with his body as he possibly can.

One by one, the sigils explode off the walls, flaming chunks of debris and plaster shooting across the room. Cas absorbs most of the blows, but there are a few that still retain their warding strength, and a handful amongst those that had anti- angelic properties to begin with.

He grits his teeth in agony as his back in pummelled. He can feel blood, slick and wet, dripping down his spine and he thinks one of his arms might be breaking under the strain, but still he holds. He can recover from this, given time and patience. Sam and Dean will likely die if any of this rubble manages to score a direct hit.

Eventually the storm abates and Cas stands, swaying and unsteady on his feet. Dean is breathing properly now, getting quicker with each inward pull. His hand comes up to claw at the Mark, digs in and scratches, gouges until he starts to bleed. Sam tries to pull his hand away and Dean snaps his teeth together and scrabbles ineffectually. Sam bats his hand away and he snarls, but weakly. Cas looks at the Mark, sees a barely there glow, counts, one, two, three, four. The instant the light leaves, so does the animating force behind Dean and he slumps back, asleep.

Cas makes a soft sound of relief, and then he passes out. Sam lunges forward, catches him before he cracks his skull on the ground.

He carries them both, Cas first, and then Dean, out of the smouldering ruins of their room.

It’s not beyond repair – not the physical walls, or the bedframe. The unimportant things. Their possessions though, photographs and weapons, books, notebooks, little souvenirs and trinkets, even their clothes. It’s all gone. Burned or broken into so much shrapnel and kindling.

It might not have been much, but it was theirs. A room is just a room, at the end of the day. It doesn’t matter. What mattered was what was inside it, the accumulated debris of two lives, settled together. Some things important, some less so, but all a part of the space that they were building together. Now the room is just a burned out shell, a fucking carcass.

Sam tries to close the door, but it’s warped, splintered and broken. It doesn’t settle right in the frame anymore. It swings back open, again and again, no matter how much force he applies to it. Eventually he gives up, gets a sheet of tarpaulin and tapes it in place.

He doesn’t want to look at the charred aftermath of another fucking fire.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY

Cas wakes violently. He’s not used to peaceful sleep. The closest he’s come in recent months is getting knocked out in the middle of a fight. He’s back on his feet, blade drawn, before he’s aware of his surroundings. It doesn’t calm him when he realises where he is. It’s not the room he left consciousness in – neither the scorched walls, nor the rubble are in sight. He’s clearly still in the bunker, the bedrooms are pretty uniform, but he’s alone. Trapped? Kidnapped? What happened while he was gone? The last thing he remembers is the sigils breaking - which means there’s a chance that whatever they were trying to hold back is loose and on the prowl.

Which might explain why he’s in here, alone.

His head aches ferociously and he feels weak, fuzzy. Almost as if he’s standing in a ring of holy fire. He scans the walls and floor for any sign of sigil or trap. There’s nothing, but he still feels soft, right down to the pit of him.

He remembers exhaustion, and it doesn’t feel like this. Exhaustion is a bone deep tiredness, heavy and difficult. Sluggish, like trying to wade through sand and heavy tar.

This feels like floating. Like he’s not solid anymore, like a soft breeze or a fucking feather. There, but ineffectual.

His hand shakes around his blade and he wants, more than anything, to lie down. To just close his eyes and drift back to sleep. But he can’t, because Dean and Sam aren’t here, and that means they might be in danger.

He tries to handle of the door, finds it locked.

He focuses, pulls up his grace from deep down. It’s hard. Harder even than when he was falling, than when he was dying and nearly extinguished. The effort makes him strain, sweat beading and running down his forehead. If there was a mirror he’d probably see his face turning red, veins popping and threatening to burst.

He grits his teeth to keep from screaming, alerting whatever did this to him that he’s awake and at least trying to come and get it.

With a grunting howl, muted between clenched teeth, he finally accesses some of his power, flings it at the door.

It’s too much, far too much. He might have managed to use his grace, but not in a controlled way. More like reaching for a dart gun and finding you’ve fired an AK-47.

Instead of being pushed off its hinges, the door explodes into shards, splintering and flying out in all directions. For the second time in however long it’s been, he’s assaulted by a barrage of debris. This time, though, he can’t resist it. Small cuts and gashes form over his face and exposed chest, don’t heal themselves.

The effort is too much for him. Black creeps up to the edges of his vision and he wants to scream. All that effort for nothing. He should have waited, should have stayed and planned, but his brain is as woollen as his limbs. Nothing works and now they’re all going to suffer for it.

 

*

 

He isn’t gone for long, this time. He comes back to the surface just as ineffectual as before, humanish, but worse. At least humans have full control of their limited range of powers. He’s fucking half this and less of that.

He stumbles back to his feet, staggers forward and clutches at the empty doorframe. It doesn’t get better out of the room. Whatever’s affecting him is bunker-wide, country-wide, fucking world-wide for all he knows.

If something like that is happening, something really big, and really bad, that means one of two things. Either whatever has been dragging Dean into this nightmare forest has climbed out through him, torn him apart, heaved itself through his blackened, twisted flesh and scorched, splintered bone. Or it’s dancing him around like a marionette, fingers dug into his nerves and pinching at them, twitching and jerking him around.

Cas forces himself down the corridor, trying and failing to keep quiet. There’s no strength in him anymore, he knows he’s only going to hurt himself if he carries on, but he doesn’t stop. He owes the Winchesters that much.

He hears a noise in the kitchen, smashing and then a shout. He throws himself forward, lurching step by painful step.

 

*

 

Sam drops a plate, swears violently. It’s been four hours since Dean and Cas dropped, and he’s dreading their awakening. How does he explain to them – to Dean especially – that almost everything they had, that which they treasured enough to keep private and to themselves, is gone.

Maybe he should just drug them, keep them under long enough that by the time they wake up he’s in a different country not having to deal with the almost literal heap of crap that is their lives.

Yeah, nice idea, but he’s not going to leave Dean and Cas to go through this alone, no matter how fucking painful it’s going to be.

He hears a scuffling noise from the corridor and braces himself. Here comes trouble. He hopes it’s Cas, he really fucking hopes it’s Cas.

It is Cas, just about. He’s dishevelled, barely able to hold himself upright. Shit. He should be in bed, not hauling his ass around out here, tearing himself to pieces.

Cas spots him, tries to snarl but it comes out more a croak.

“Where are Dean and Sam? What have you done to me?”

Sam’s brow furrows. “It’s me, Cas.”

“Prove it.” He rasps, blade held shakily up. He’s blinking heavy and slow, eyes forced wide and teeth bared.

“What the fuck, Cas?”

Cas tries to lunge forward, stumbles and ends up on the ground.

“Okay, okay!” Sam holds up his palms, slowly moves towards the table and picks up the silver knife they keep there for reasons less than innocent. He presses it into the flesh of his arm where Cas can see and then puts it down and kicks it over.

“Holy water, salt.” Cas gasps, pulling himself up into seating position but seemingly unable to get any further.

“Yeah, okay. Okay.”

He carries on moving slowly, like he’s dealing with a frightened dog. He leans down to where Cas knows they keep the emergency demon-proofing supplies, grabs them and baptises himself with the holy water, swallows a mouthful of salt and tries not to throw it up.

Cas visibly deflates with relief. It’s actually Sam, and he’s relaxed(ish), which means that Dean must be fine, too.

“It’s really you.”

“Yeah, Cas. Yeah. Now, you wanna tell me what that was about?”

“Where’s Dean?”

“In bed, asleep.”

“Why wasn’t he with me?”

Sam grimaces.

“You were acting weird, groaning and thrashing around. I didn’t want you to accidentally hurt him. That’s why I locked your door, too. In case you started sleep walking or something, blasting things by accident. Can’t be too careful, with everything.”

“No.” Cas agrees. “You can’t.”

“So, um, are you okay?”

Cas sighs, bitterly.

“There’s a suppression in the bunker – erratic. I can’t use my powers, or when I can I can’t control them.”

Sam notices now the bloody splinters. He doesn’t ever expect to see Cas injured so he didn’t even really look for it.

“Shit, man. You okay?”

“I uh, exploded a door.”

“Doors can be fixed.”  Sam shrugs. What’s a fucking door compared to what else is gone. “Am I okay to help you up?”

“Please.”

He lifts Cas upright, carries him back to his bed. As Sam helps him settle down comfortably he touches a spot on Cas’s back that makes him flinch. He pulls his hand away, and it comes oozing and bloody.

“I think you’ve burned your back.”

Cas grimaces.

“I can’t heal, whatever’s happening, it’s stopping me.”

“I can patch you up?”

Cas nods stiffly.

Sam grabs their new first aid kit – an actual one, because dental floss and whiskey are great, but they’re not on the road so he thought why not buy something that is _actual_  medical grade, instead of just, you know, really alcoholic.

He settles down behind Cas and immediately sees what the problem is.

“Uh, Cas.”

“Mmm.”

Cas is only barely conscious, hanging on by the very last thread.

“I know why your powers are fucked.”

Cas wishes Sam’d just spit whatever it is out so he can go to sleep. He’s not sure whether he voices this out loud or not, doesn’t really care.

Whatever the problem is, Sam can deal with it. He trusts Sam, almost as much as he trusts Dean. It’s Sam’s problem now, he’s going to go to sleep.

He stops fighting, slumps forward.

Sam sighs, regards the charred, oozing flesh on Cas’s back. Some of the flaming sigils must have hit him, hard enough and hot enough to leave a burned on imprint. They’re fuzzy and imprecise, but clearly enough to put a decent kibosh on his powers.

Sam grabs the silver knife from the kitchen floor and scores two thick lines through each burn. Nothing happens. Yeah, he was afraid of that. He’s going to have to gouge them off, bit by bit.

Fuck, he hopes Dean doesn’t wake up just in time to see him mutilating Cas.

And then a quieter voice in the back of his head – at least if he wakes up to see it, that’ll mean he’s alive and fine.

 

*

 

Sam thanks whatever gods are left that Cas doesn’t wake up as layer by layer, he scrapes off the blackened mess, to the raw, weeping tissue underneath. Sam hopes that when the black is gone that’ll be the end of it, that Cas’ll spring back to life and heal himself, but he’s not that naïve.  Of course it’s not that simple.

He poises the blade over Cas’s back, wondering how strong these particular marks are, how much of it is padding and how much is actual effect. He figures start in the middle and work outwards. There’s a looping spiral there which he digs out, repeating reassurances to himself in his head at first, and then out loud.

Cas will heal. Finish this, and he’ll heal it away. Don’t worry about gangrene, or blood loss, or fuck, Cas dying, unconscious and without Dean by his side. At the hands of one of his only friends. It won’t happen. He’ll be fine. _He’ll be fucking fine._

Self-doubt creeps in as he obliterates the spiral and moves onto some enochian looking characters that ring it. Maybe this is all a coincidence, maybe these symbols are nothing to do with Cas’s weakness. Maybe that fire was the thing that stole his power.

Maybe this is just killing him quicker.

He doesn’t want Cas to die – and not just for Dean’s sake. Of course not just for Dean’s sake. Yeah, Dean might have found in Cas a profound love or whatever the fuck they’re calling it these days, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less important to Sam. Cas is his _friend._ One of a very few. The person, or whatever, that he’s closest to outside his family. He’s been there for them, through it all, has always _tried_ to do right by them – even when he ended up doing the opposite.

If Cas dies here, Sam doesn’t just lose the person his brother loves. He loses a friend, practically a family member. And he hasn’t got many of them to spare – fuck it, that makes it sound like he only values Cas because there’s no one else. It’s not that.

Cas is his friend, and whether he had one or a hundred, he doesn’t want to lose him.

He has to carry on. It’s his only option. Stop and Cas dies, of humanity, of blood loss, of whatever. Carry on and he might, he _might_ have a chance.

Sam digs the knife in, levers out a chunk of enochian branded flesh. He thinks he sees faint blue sparks coalesce around the wound, but maybe he imagines it.

He carves out another, and then another. He can barely see what he’s doing now, through the blood and the fucking tears that he can’t seem to hold back.

“I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry.” He chants under his breath. It’d be fitting for Castiel, grand high priest of fucking up with the best of intentions, to die like that – like this, with Sam levering out lumps of his flesh in an attempt to save him.

No, no. He can’t think like that. He has to just carry on.

There’s only one bit of sigil left now, a jagged, scratching symbol. He digs the knife into its centre, preparing to cut through and gouge it out.

He doesn’t get that far. The moment the line is broken by silver, blue flares up out of the wound, pours out of Cas’s body and surrounds him.

Sam slams his eyes shut, the glow seared on his retinas for probably the rest of his life. He waits until the heat fades, until he can’t feel the light battering at him, and then he opens his eyes.

Cas is sitting, panting harshly but now whole. He’s covered in blood, but the wounds it came from are nowhere to be seen. Sam folds over on the bed, head in hands and takes in a few deep, relieved breaths.

He gathers himself, sits up and catches Cas’s eye.

“Did it work, you all back?”

“Yes, thank you.” He pauses a moment. “I felt them healing, the wounds, on my back. Doing that, it can’t have been easy.”

“It was nothing, Cas.” He shrugs it off.

Cas gives him that look _._ The one that says I spend a _lot_ of time with Dean Winchester, don’t think you can fool me with your bullshit pretending to be fine.

“It _was_ nothing, okay. Not the first time I’ve had to gouge chunks out of someone to save their life.”

“Hmm.” Cas doesn’t sound convinced, but he’s prepared to let it slide.

“There’s something else.”

“Of course there is.” Cas sighs.

“What do you remember?”

“Explosions, mainly.”

Sam decides to stop toeing around, just get it over and done with.

“Your room was destroyed. All your stuff, all Dean’s stuff – I haven’t had a chance to do a proper search, but it doesn’t look good. At a glance I’d say it’s all gone.”

Cas doesn’t say anything for the longest time, just stares blankly at Sam – his buffer face. Sam wants to prod him, shake his arms, get up in his face and just try and get a reaction.

Eventually Cas pulls himself out of whatever headspace, or happy place in the woods or whatever, he’d been away at.

“Everything was in that room.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Cas, about your stuff.”

Cas shakes his head, a vague dismissal.

“Not mine. Mine doesn’t matter. I didn’t have much I valued, and what I did was mostly from you and Dean. It’s regrettable, but what little I’ve lost isn’t irreplaceable.”

Sam knows where this is heading.

“Unlike the stuff Dean lost.”

Cas nods.

“Dean… he’s not going to take this well.”

Sam pulls his hands through his hair, a little too roughly.

“Tell me something I don’t fucking know, Cas.”

Cas doesn’t snap back at him. He’s too tired for this. He just wants to go and lay down in bed with Dean. Sleep for real this time, and not as a result of some draining sigil. He wants peace and he wants calm.

Never mind an oasis, he just wants one drop, one drop of peace in the desert of misfortune that makes up their lives.

That’s not fair, though. Not really. There are good things, fucking hell, the night before all of this he was learning to cook and having every inch of his body worshipped with almost blasphemous devotion.

It’s just hard to remember things like that, when things like this are happening.

“I don’t know whether to clean it up. I’ve spent four hours standing in the kitchen, trying to convince myself to go back in there, clean away the rubble, make it easier for him.” Sam looks at Cas helplessly, like he’s looking for guidance.

Cas shrugs at him.

“I don’t think it matters. He’s just lost the only – to my knowledge – mementoes he has of all the people he cares about that are no longer around. I don’t think it’ll make the shittiest bit of difference how clean or not the room is.”

Sam flinches, like Cas has lashed out at him. Cas knows he’s being unkind, unnecessarily harsh, but he can’t bring himself to care. He wants whiskey, he wants vodka, he wants sleep, he wants to crawl into bed with Dean and never crawl out again.

 

*

 

Cas slips into the room where Dean’s sleeping, intending to settle in behind him, pull him close and breathe him in. He’s hoping he’ll get a little while, ten minutes at the very least, to just calmly hold him before he wakes up, before they have to start dealing with things.

He doesn’t get it.

The minute he touches the bed Dean rolls over, eyes still closed, reaches out for him.

“Cas?”

“I’m here, Dean.”

“You weren’t.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

 “S’fine. You’re here now.”

Cas lies down on the bed, lets Dean roll into him, cling to him.

“It happened again.” Dean mumbles.

“I know.” He pauses. “Are you okay?”

Dean snorts.

“As okay as you can be when three crazy beast-women decide to mess with your head and then tear you apart, and then you wake up like none of it ever happened.”

“At least you did wake up.”

“Yeah, thanks for that, Mr Optimism.”

Cas huffs a noncommittal noise.

“It was different, this time.”

“Oh?”

Here we go.

“Before, when I was revived, I was revived in the dream. Up and alive, ready to go, and then I passed out a minute or so later and woke up in the real world. This time, it was like I was stuck, halfway between living and dead, like I’d been brought back, strung out and held there between the two – and it _burned._ ”

He opens his eyes, sees the room for the first time. Sees the expression on Cas’s face.

 “Cas. Where are we?” He sits up and looks around.

“In the bunker.”

“This isn’t our room. Or our bed.” Dean’s voice takes on a sharp edge. “Why are we in here, Cas?” 

“Something happened.”

“Yeah, I fucking guessed that, thanks, _buddy._ ” He imbues the word with a venom that makes Cas flinch.

“The sigils, they reacted to something. We don’t know what.”

“You wanna get to the fucking _point?_ ” Dean doesn’t want to take this out on Cas, but the more he fucking toes around him, the more scared he gets, the easier it is to lash out.

Cas grimaces, fidgets and resettles, so he’s sitting opposite but not touching. He takes Dean’s hands and looks at him, right in the eyes, and now Dean’s scared.  Really and properly scared.

“There was an explosion, in the room. All of our things, everything in there. It’s ruined.”

Dean’s first reaction is so fucking what, stuff is just stuff. And then he processes. The stuff in that room isn’t just the stuff you’d dump in a motel room, clothes and books and replaceable shit. It’s all the things that used to live in the Impala, the precious shit that he doesn’t want to lose. Gifts, from Sam and Cas, Charlie, even fucking Garth.

It’s also mementoes of the dead, things that remind him of his dad, of Bobby and Benny and Ellen and Jo.

His mom’s photograph.

He rips away from Cas, is on his feet before he knows it. He runs down the hall, dizzy and unstable. There’s something screaming in his ears, clutching at his brain and squeezing, compressing it down into almost nothing.

He reaches the door. Except there’s no door. It’s a sheet of blue tarpaulin, out of place, _jarring_. He rips it down with a yell, vaguely hears Cas and Sam arguing fiercely behind him, but he doesn’t give a shit.

He stumbles across the threshold. It looks like what it is, a bombsite. He falls to his knees by the chunks of what used to be the dresser. All his photographs had been piled on top of it, out of the way of the wet, painted sigils.

He digs through the rubble, piece by piece, until his fingers are bleeding, his eyes streaming. He doesn’t find anything, not a scrap, not a fragment. Not even the curled corner of a charred photograph.

Fury build and builds in him. The Mark registers on his arm, a weak pulse that tells him to turn around, tear apart the nearest living thing with his hands. He ignores it, instead grabs a corner of the broken bedframe, hefts it up and swings it against the wall, screaming as he does so. Plaster crumbles to the floor and Sam and Cas watch, impotently from the door. He thinks they might be saying something to him, but he can’t hear it, not over the ringing in his ears.

Eventually his strength fails him and he drops the bedframe, joins it in a heap on the floor.

There’s ash everywhere, disturbed by his fury. It’s in his throat and lungs and mouth, smeared across his cheeks and in the creases of his palms. It sticks in his wounds, stinging. It turns to cement in his tear ducts, flows into his heart and in his head.

He doesn’t cry.

Cas pads over and sits beside him, pulls Dean up so that he’s sitting against the wall instead of lying in the rubble on the floor. Dean slumps against him instead, head on his shoulder, shaking with an emotion Cas can’t quite identify, anger or sadness or something else entirely. He rests his head on top of Dean’s, gently wipes the soot out of his eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, painfully aware of the inadequacy of his words.

Dean doesn’t say anything, but when Cas pulls his hand away, his fingers are wet.

 

*

 

Dean might be the one, out of them all, who feels this the most deeply, but that doesn’t mean Sam isn’t hurting too. It’s why Cas’s earlier snappishness shames him now. It’s what prompts him to make eye-contact with Sam as he starts to turn away, leave them to this moment. Cas beckons him over, and he comes.

They sandwich Dean on either side, Cas pulling him in as tight as possible, trying to envelop him, smother him so he doesn’t have to deal with the outside world, while Sam just sits, a solid, familiar presence at his side.

It doesn’t fix anything, but it helps, for now.


	10. Chapter 10

Sam wakes to the sound of violence. Raised voices and smashing furniture. A Winchester dawn chorus.

He hefts his stiff frame up from the floor, surveys the mess that surrounds him. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. Has a vague suspicion that it wasn’t entirely of his own volition – dreams of blue sparks dance jaggedly, half remembered, at the edges of his mind.

He knows he should probably go and check what the racket is, but, well, Dean has a history of expressing his feelings with a crowbar. Cas is probably better placed, strength wise, to put a stop to him if he starts destroying anything vitally important.

Instead, he shuffles to the kitchen, brews himself a coffee and thinks about clearing out the room. He can’t leave it to his emotionally repressed idiot brother and his delightful protégé, if it was up to them Sam knows what’d happen. They’d board up the door and pretend like it was nothing. Except no, they probably wouldn’t even get that far, because closing it up would be the same as admitting that there’s something behind the boards that they’re trying to keep out, keep away from themselves.

 Someone has to be the fucking adult around here.

 

*

 

Dean swings the crowbar, taking a vicious satisfaction in the screeching of metal as he caves in the side of a lime green Aston Martin. He follows that blow up with a few more, levers the head into a small gap and tears off a wide strip of metal. He tries to rip this apart with his bare hands, fails and hurls it furiously behind him with a scream.

Cas only just jerks out of the way in time.

Dean picks the crowbar back up and comes around to the front of the vehicle, stands on the bonnet and hefts the tool around a few times before driving it directly into the windscreen.

The scream of breaking glass scratches at his ears, comes close to matching the noise inside his head, but doesn’t quite make it.

“DEAN!”

He’s vaguely aware that Cas has been trying to get his attention for a while, but right now he doesn’t give a shit. Right now it’s just him and the fucking cacophonous music of destruction.

And then Cas touches him on the shoulder. Just like that Dean's sanguine destructive attitude is gone, replaced by real, feral, rage.

He whirls around, eyes wide and teeth bared. Cas sneaks a glance at the Mark as he does so. It’s not glowing, or showing any sign of life. Is that a good thing? He’s not even sure any more.

“You fucking _touch_ me again and I’ll break your fucking nose.”

Then he turns back to the wreck of the classic car laid out in front of him. Just so much scrap metal now.

Cas sighs, throws his hands up in the air and leaves the garage, just leaves Dean to it. Short of sitting on him until he calms down – a strategy which is likely to make Dean much angrier, for much longer – there isn’t much he can do.

He retreats to the kitchen, where he finds Sam. He’s cradling a mug of coffee like it’s the only thing left in his life with some kind of meaning.

He looks up as Cas approaches him, takes in the look on his face and sighs. There’s a lot of that been going around recently.

“How is he?”

“Not great. Your collection of antique cars grows sparser by the minute.”

“Shit.”

Sam tries to muster up something a little more incisive, gets stuck on one word swears. Not particularly big or clever, as his teachers used to constantly tell him, but they sum up pretty well what he’s feeling right now.

“Should we try and stop him?”

“I did. He threatened to break my nose.”

Sam raises his eyebrows.

“Well, at least he’s not threatening banishing sigils."

“Not yet, but I don’t think he was far away.”

“Huh.”

They stand in silence for a little while, listening to the almost rhythmical noise of Dean slowly destroying all of the cars in the garage.

“I was thinking of clearing out the room?”

Sam intones it as a question, and from this Cas infers that he’s asking for permission, or for help. Maybe both.

“I’m sorry, about before.”

Sam shrugs.

“You were upset. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. I wasn’t thinking. Just because Dean was the one who kept those things, doesn’t mean they weren’t important to you too. I should have been more sensitive.”

“I really don’t mind, Cas. I’m not big on the whole material possessions thing. I like to remember people up here.” He taps his forehead. “Not with a bunch of random, meaningless junk – but don’t tell Dean I said that.” He adds quickly.

“He’d probably use his crowbar to readjust your facial features.”

Sam snorts.

“And then some. So, you gonna help me, or what?”

Cas nods, stretches, and follows Sam out of the room. They work in companionable silence for the most part. Everything is sorted into two big piles, junk and salvageable, and then once that’s done it’s sorted down further, into groups of similar importance or function.

Everything not completely beyond ruin is saved. There’s no way of telling which routes Dean’s sentimentality will traipse down when he’s calmer. They don’t want to accidentally throw away the one thing he’s going to, for reasons known probably not even to himself, pine after.

The remains of t-shirts and burned fabric scraps go in a bin-bag. A selection of lightly charred skin mags get set aside, they’re still usable enough, if a little smokey smelling. Weapons get lumped up all together – it’s impossible to tell if most of them are still functional without testing them, and this room has seen enough damage for the time being.

Sam murmurs soft, sad noises over the small collection of books. They’re not arcane tomes; any of those got put back in the library when Cas and Dean switched rooms. These are Dean’s personal collection. His Vonneguts and Kerouacs and other, more surprising titles. Little portable paperbacks that he’s picked up on the road and, for one reason or another, clung on to. Sam flicks open what’s left of a battered copy of Slaughterhouse-Five, the front and back are gone, but there’s still a chunk of the middle hanging onto the binding. He can see Dean’s scrawling, childhood handwriting, annotating the text.

His notes aren’t academic, either. All the ones Sam can see are personal, brusque little comments. And one quote, underlined so aggressively that the pencil has gone through to the next page.

“People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.”

Sam traces his thumb over the tear. He wonders when Dean did this, why he did it. He can’t ask him, though.  It’s probably a violation of Dean’s privacy to thumb through this, something he wasn’t offered, something he took. He flips through two more pages, and then he carefully puts the fragment of book down.

It’s odd. He knows Dean so well but he’d never pick him as a notes in the margin kinda guy. Maybe he used to be, back when Sam wasn’t paying much attention, when it was all about him vs dad, with Dean in the middle. Maybe it just shows that no matter how much you know about someone, you’ve never got it all.

He sighs, shakes off the bad thoughts and fetches an axe. He’s not doing a Dean. This isn’t rage-fuelled destruction. This is strictly for practical reasons. He hefts it around a few times and then starts to chop the bedframe up into manageable pieces. What can’t be saved can be recycled, burned for warmth. Good can come of bad, in the most mundane of ways.

It saves him having to get his ear chewn off anyway, the way he would if he went out and just bought some wood, or even cut down a nearby tree, piled it up in the Impala and had Dean complaining about having to pick splinters out of his baby’s poor, punctured seats.

 

*

 

Cas sweeps the ash into one big pile and sifts through it carefully. He’s determined not to miss a single piece, hunting as he is for a corner of Mary’s bright smile, or Bobby’s irritated scowl. He finds a photographic fragment of something, a bush or a tree maybe, and he sets that aside, looks at it hopefully – if it survived, something else might have.

The pile grows. Added to the greenery is a scrap of wrinkled skin, a brief white glimmer of tooth, some background stuff, maybe wallpaper or a row of books just out of focus. Other things too, not just bits of photographs. A little piece of metal, twisted and curled like it’s from some jewellery, a cracked bit of pearl inlay, a shell picked up from a beach somewhere, miraculously intact. Little scraps of paper, most with printed words, some with tiny handwritten fragments.

The last thing Cas finds is the corner of a blue eye. It floors him for a moment. He recognises that shade as his own, but he didn’t know Dean had any pictures of him. He’s touched, oddly enough. He shouldn’t be, really. He knows Dean loves him, he’s told almost every day, with words or with actions. But it’s different to see it like this, with a paper trail, definitive proof that it’s not all in his head. His picture sits, or at least sat, nestled amongst those Dean treasured the most.

It’s nice to be reminded, especially at times like this.

 

*

 

What remains of the dresser goes the same way as the bedframe. Soon there’s a neat pile of firewood and kindling in one corner. Sam stands up, wipes his black, sweaty hands on his jeans and then grunts in irritation when he realises that now he’s just smeared great, dark, handprints down the leg. He’ll have to go get changed before he’s allowed to sit down on the sofa with a cold beer. Because for someone who spends half their time covered in grave dirt and blood, Dean has become almost charmingly house-proud when it comes to the bunker. To his first real home in years, outside the Impala.

 

*

 

Sam’s ash dirty jeans are the last thing on Dean’s mind at the present moment, though. The ringing in his ears hasn’t settled, and he can’t seem to think through it. There’s only one car left standing in the garage, and it’s the Impala. He swings his crowbar up high, and then it falls to the ground. His arms are shaking from the exertion and he feels lightheaded, from the strain both mental and physical.

He isn’t angry anymore. Stopped being angry about three vehicles ago – after he reduced Dorothy’s motorbike to the scattered remains of its component parts. He’s just going through the motions, needs to do something to exorcise the terrible itching, screaming vibration from his bones. It’s rewarding, mindless work. Lets him stop thinking.

There are cuts and gashes up his arm and fingers from trying to tear metal apart with his bare hands and he welcomes them. He clenches his fists tight and digs his nails into his palms.

He’s feeling too much. The opposite of the problem he thought he’d be having – and the Mark is whispering, louder than it’s been for days. But not, he’d realise – if he had the time or effort to devote to thinking about this of his many problems – as loud as it should be, as loud as it was a few months ago.

_You’re feeling too much. I know. I can help there. You remember how good it was, how quiet all this was. We can have that again. The sex, the violence, the glee. None of this moping guilt and despair._

“Shut up.” He mumbles at it, repeats louder when it doesn’t seem to listen. “Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!”

He digs his nails into the Mark now, doesn’t feel anything. It’s dead flesh, demon flesh. It’s nothing, it’s fucking nothing.

He needs pain relief, he needs the numbness in his arm to spread to the rest of his body, settle in his head and cushion him from all of this bullshit.

He can’t even try and escape by burying himself in sins of the flesh, in Cas. That happiness, that complacency, that’s what got him into this mess in the first place. It happens every time. He lets his guard down, he lets himself enjoy something, and he’s punished for it. Cassie, Lisa and Ben, now Cas. He can’t fucking do this. Can’t let himself slow down and drop his guard. He has to be an island, because otherwise he ends up a fucking desert.

And no matter how many times he repeats, it’s only stuff, it’s only stuff. It’s not _stuff._ It never was _stuff._ It’s the people he’s lost, it’s all he has left of them.

And it's not even just that. It's also the people he still has, it’s Sam and Cas. Because he doesn’t know what happened in that room, but from looking at the state of it, it wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t pretty. They could have died in that fucking wreckage. Two more bodies checked off on his list. Two more corpses to be burned and leave him behind. Alone, again, but for good this time.

He stumbles into the kitchen and grabs at a bottle of whiskey. His hands won’t obey him, they’re shaking too hard, and he knocks it onto the floor where it smashes. He yells out in frustration.

Sam and Cas come running, take in his wild, bloodshot eyes and his shaking hands and decide they know better than he does what he needs.

_Just like they always do,_ whispers the Mark.

“Dean, leave the whiskey. We can sit down, watch a film.” Cas makes to touch his arm.

“FUCK OFF!” He smacks the hand away, grabs the two other bottles from the cupboard and backs off cautiously.

Sam lunges forward, tries to grab, him. He jerks out of the way, spins around and runs.  They give chase, he can hear them thundering down the corridor behind him, but he’s Dean Winchester. He might not be the most health conscious, but he doesn’t need to be. He’s fast, he’s fucking good at this.

He throws himself around corners and down corridors, kicking things into the path of his pursuers like he thinks he’s in an Indiana Jones film. Eventually he reaches his goal, has enough distance between himself and Sam and Cas to get in there and stay there.

He skids into the bathroom and throws all of his strength against the door, slamming and locking it just in time, before Sam can put all of his ridiculous weight to good use and force it back open.

“Dean! Come on!”

“Fuck off.”

He hears a muffled discussion through the wood.

“We could break it down?”

“And then what?”

“Take the bottles off him.”

“I hate to say it, Cas, but he’s an adult. This is how he copes.”

“I know that.” He hears Cas snap. “I just don’t want to risk finding him suffocated in a puddle of his own vomit when we _do_ eventually break the door down.”

Dean look at the two bottles in hand, still mostly intact despite their wild ride. Cas is worrying about nothing, as usual. It’s enough to get him good and drunk. It’s not enough for a fucking suicide binge.

He throws back his head and slugs down as much as he can without throwing it right back up. This isn’t about enjoying it. This is about silencing the fucking demons, in his head and on his arm, giving him some fucking peace.

It burns as he goes down and he feels the Mark on his arm twinge hopefully.

“Shuddup.” He mutters around the neck of the bottle, carries on swallowing until his throat is raw and his stomach is roiling. He lowers the whiskey, about half empty now, swipes the back of his hand over his mouth.

The Mark tries to get his attention but he does his best to ignore it. He wants distraction and numbness, he doesn’t fucking want that kind of distraction and numbness. He’s not quite that fucking desperate. Yet.

And then, the little fucker, it rallies up the big guns. Maybe it’d been weak, maybe it’d been dormant up to now. Maybe it’d just been saving itself up, building up to this moment. Whatever the case, it seizes its opportunity. A perfect storm of rage and misery and alcohol.

A spike of bloodlust courses through him, so strong, so vicious, that he nearly keels over. The itching in his muscles and bones doubles, triples, multiplies by tenfold and just keeps on going. He screams in impotent rage, slams a vicious fist into his own reflection in the mirror and howls, in delight at the gleeful destruction, in pain at the broken shards of glass embedded now in his flesh.

He needs to rip and tear and rend and fight and _destroy._ There’s so little space for rational thought left in his mind, just the imagined sensation of something alive and sinewy clutched in his hands as he tears it apart, spills its blood on the ground and fucking baptises himself in it.

_There are living bodies close._ The Mark whispers to him, gentle, seductive.

That triggers a thought. A strange, confusing one. He wants, no, he _needs_ to rend and tear and destroy, but he can’t kill the two men outside the door. He can’t, why can’t he?

A sliver of rational thought grasps a toehold.

IT’S FUCKING SAM AND CAS, YOU IDIOT.

He grits his teeth as that thought washes through him, cold water to the boiling, seething bloodlust. And like cold water mixed with hot blood, it dilutes it, cools it a little. Doesn’t get rid of it entirely. There’s only one way he’s going to get rid of this entirely, and that’s to feed the Mark, sate it with some kind of blood offering. Except the only way he’s getting out of that door, through Sam and Cas, brings him too close to them. He can’t risk removing the only barrier between them now, not when the Mark has just shown its hand, what it can do if it decides to hold back and stock up.

And then, just like that, he has an idea. A fucking miracle of an idea.

Just because there’s nothing in the waking world that he can take his emotions out on with impunity, nothing living, nothing _satisfying_ at least, doesn’t mean there isn’t somewhere else.

There’s one place he can get to, without even having to leave the fucking room, where he can fight and rage and kill with little enough consequence. It’s dying there that’s the problem, and even that, well in his current state he doubts that’s going to happen.

For the first time he welcomes the forest. Let it take him, let him fucking rage through it, all fury and wrath and destruction. If he can’t drown his demons, can’t outrun them, then he’s just going to have to fucking outfight them.

The Mark lurches, recoils on his arm. It doesn’t like it, even actively despises the idea. It releases another burst of bloodlust and adrenaline into him, hoping, trying to goad him into breaking down that door and killing the people it wants him to. He can’t go back to that forest, can’t go back out of its reach, HE CAN’T. He mustn’t.

_It’s bad for you there, Dean. I’m just trying to save you. I was the one who rescued you from there, every time you died. Dean, Dean, don’t do it. You can’t go back._

The Mark’s whispering voice takes on a wheedling tone in his head, begging.

It doesn’t really matter though, because he’s barely able to focus. All he can think about now are all the things waiting for him in the forest. There might be two bodies here, but out there, they are beyond measure. He could rage and rampage around that forest until the day the earth dies, for all he knows.

The only problem now is how to get there. He can’t fall asleep, not like this, not with every cell standing to alert and hungering for blood.

Natural sleep isn’t the only way to become unconscious, though.

He drains the rest of the bottle of whiskey, burps, and dives into the medicine cabinet. There’s an old bottle of knockout pills, still in date. The label says take no more than two, so he swallows four, with another whiskey chaser.

He lays down in the bathtub, still vibrating, itching with the need to get up and run and savage and maul and fight.

It takes every inch of his self-control to keep himself there, keep himself down. He’s convinced it’s not working, he’s starting to shake, he can’t stay here a minute longer, he has to get up, get away get out.

He throws himself to his feet, opens his eyes.

He sees green.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is later than usual, my cousin was up from Devon for the weekend and family trumps fic.
> 
> Also, I've been in a raging bad mood since thursday night because of the election so very little writing has been done, but I will try and get the next chapter out at the usual time.

He’s in a wooded clearing, surrounded by the torn earth and bloodied mud from his last visit. It’s empty, far too empty, and silent too. Not a rustle in the trees, not a breath of wind. Not even the howling of wolves.

The bloodlust itches under his skin, cries out with rage and frustration. It was promised rent flesh and bone, death and destruction. All that’s been delivered is fucking scenery.

Dean punches out at a tree, succeeds only in bloodying his knuckles, pissing himself off even more.

“COME ON.” He howls at the sky, arms spread wide, in angry, goading invitation. “COME AND GET ME!”

The sky doesn’t respond. The sky just stays like it always is. Gloomy.

Fortunately, or not, he doesn't have to wait too long before the forest provides him with that he wants. It takes the form of a faint movement in the bushes. He flings himself forward, buries his hands in the foliage. His fingers enclose around a thin neck. It feels human, but he doesn’t believe it, or he doesn’t care. If it is a human, it isn’t Sam or Cas or someone he knows. It's not even _someone._ It’s not real, no matter how it feels.  That’s the fucking point of this place isn’t it?

He squeezes it tight in his grip and pulls it out, into sight. The creature looks cosmetically human; female, dark skin and thick, curly hair. There’s a feral cut to her mouth though, predatory expression in her eye that hints at something more dangerous.

She doesn’t fight or resist, just looks at him curiously, nostrils flaring like she’s trying to sniff him out. She sighs, trails her fingers over the hands tightly gripping her throat.

 Flesh melts and bubbles under Dean’s hands as she sheds her skin and shucks his grip with it. Shapeshifter, then. A familiar face now looks back at him, with a cheeky grin and green, come to bed eyes. Maybe it thinks he’s less likely to be able to harm something looking back at him with his own face, maybe it just wants to unsettle him.

It manages neither.

He throws himself after the shifter, hands outstretched, trying to get another grip and throttle that grin off its face. The shapeshifter reacts with startling speed – like it’s used to being attacked suddenly and from all sides.

Dean lunges out wildly, none of his usual finesse or tactics. He punches out at its head, chest, fucking legs, anywhere he thinks he sees an opening, anywhere he doesn’t too. Nothing lands. The creature is some sort of marital arts ninja or some crap, like it’s reading his mind. Or like it’s wearing his skin and has absorbed his fighting style.

He bares his teeth in a scream and charges forward, arms outstretched to grab it and fucking wrestle it to the ground, sink his teeth into its flesh and just destroy it. It slides to the side, easily, out of the way, winking at him, taunting him with his own face.

It doesn’t fight back and that’s what really enrages him. It’s like fighting his own fucking shadow, no blows land, no blows are even _blocked._ It just glides out of his way every time, goading him, angering him and making it even harder to think rationally.  The red mist hasn’t so much descended as enveloped him, poured in through his nose and mouth and ears and painted him crimson from the inside out.

The itching in his veins is burning now, scraping along every nerve and cell, scouring him, heating him up and up and up. He has to win this fight or it’s going to consume him, set him alight and burn him up, mind and body and soul and whatever else is left.

The creature finally lunges for him, and as he ducks the blow he hears something behind him, a slight crunch of leaves, the hiss of air being displaced.

He dodges out of the way and his hands fly up, almost of their own accord. He grabs the wrist of whatever is trying to stab him and squeezes, digs his nails in hard, until a little blood wells up in the crescents. He inhales a deep, savouring breath. The smell settles him a little, the tantalising hint of something, a promise of violence to come.

The sword the creature is holding, a beautiful, monstrous thing – black metal folded through with red, a guard formed of a whole, twisted and gnarled horn, and a grip of dyed red leather and rope – falls to the ground and Dean snatches it up greedily.

It’s the first time he’s held a real weapon in this nightmare world, and he can tell that it’s real this time. The sword’s power hums through him. He can feel a hunger in it, a bloodlust to match his own. He pulls in a deep breath, straightens and takes in his two opponents. Whatever power they had came from this weapon, and now it is his. He’s going to dice them up, christen his new blade with the blood of its old masters.

It vibrates under his touch, sings with him, goes some little way to calm the burning, itching, aching need in his marrow. It wants to be here, with him. Instinctively he knows something of its nature; that it is, in its own small way, aware. A bit like the One Ring. Except while that particular piece of fictional jewellery had the sole goal of returning to its true master, this sword goes to where it can cause the most bloodshed. It seeks out the nearest killer, it settles in their hand, and it dances.

The shapeshifter hisses angrily at the interloper.

“You were supposed to kill him, not arm him.”

If this were the real world, if this were a real hunt, Dean might have let them talk, spill whatever useful secrets he can harvest. Because it’s not, he pounces.

The second creature is dead before it has time to realise it is being attacked. Dean pulls the sword out of its chest with a slick noise and then a thud as he dumps the body on the ground. The other doesn’t wait to mourn its partner. It turns and runs.

Dean gives chase. He can outrun almost any monster, but this one is wearing his body, has the exact same speed and stamina he does. He pursues it for a little bit, step matched to step, and then, reluctantly, he throws the sword.

It pierces the shapeshifter’s calf, tumbles it. Before it can pull the weapon free and turn it on Dean, though, he’s on top of it. He pins it to the ground and takes the sword back, drags it in a heavy line across the creature’s back, drinking in the blood and the sweat and the screams of pain.

The creature doesn’t beg for its life. It doesn’t waste the breath.

Dean doesn’t toy with it for long. Torture isn’t going to satisfy his bloodlust sufficiently. The Mark, the suspiciously silent root of his rage and bloodlust and fury, is ambivalent about torture. It’s only fun if it’s someone Dean knows. It’s only worth it if it hurts him, fucking claws at the inside of his head and _breaks_ him.

The Mark enjoys pre-emptive revenge. It wants to build up a good stock of things that Dean won’t be able to live with, should he lose control and then claw it back _again_. If he does shuck it, if he does fight it away and win, it wants to make sure he’ll die soon after, self-hating, alone and crippled by the miserable knowledge of what he’s done.

The Mark doesn’t like to do things by halves. And that includes breaking in hosts.

Dean drives the sword into the back of the shifter’s head, pierces clean through his brain and pulls it out dripping with blood and viscera.

He pushes himself back up to his feet and looks around. He’s made a lot of noise and spilled a lot of blood in a forest that seems to be only filled with monsters. Surely something must have heard the din, smelled the death and destruction laid out like a fucking buffet.

He’s not quite burning up any more, but he still twinges, still _wants_ to find something to kill.

“COME AND FUCKING GET ME.” He howls out again.

And the forest obliges.

A blur of fangs and claws whirls out at him from the side. He flicks the sword up just in time to shield himself from the blow, slices down along the first werewolf’s arm. Another comes at him from behind and he spins around and sheathes the blade in her chest. She snarls at him, angry, but definitely not dead, and lunges to grab at the weapon. Dean kicks her off it, throws himself to the side and into the path of another wolf, who he beheads with a quick slash.

These aren’t the werewolves he’s used to. They’re more wolfish, for one. Long muzzles and yellow eyes and teeth, fur thick enough to bury your hand in. They look less like the real thing and more like the movie version. Probably not surprising, I mean this is all in his head, even if it does somehow have the potential to kill him. He’s seen more fictional werewolves than real ones, and for god’s sake, fucking Garth is a real werewolf. Like he’s gonna find that shit scary any more.

Dean stabs another in the chest and wrestles him to the ground, pinning him down in preparation to chop his fucking head off, when another fastens its teeth around his arm and yanks him away.

Dean punches him square on the nose – like you would a shark, because why not. The 'wolf lets go, but probably more from confusion than because Dean actually hurt him. Still, it gives Dean the grace he needs to knock the beast to the ground. His arm _burns_ and it enrages him, stokes up the bloodlust that had been settled and content.  

Dean drives the sword through the creature's body with enough force to pin him, through his chest and a few inches into the dirt below. He struggles a bit, until Dean drives his thumbs into bright yellow eyes and pierces them with a sickening pop. The creature howls, literally, wolfish looks matched by the wolfish scream of pain that tears from his throat.

Dean howls back at the creature, punches him in the face again and again. He doesn’t stop, even when his knuckles are bloody and torn, even when the wolf’s face is barely recognisable as such, teeth scattered on the ground, light tawny fur thick and matted, discoloured with his own blood. At the point where supernatural vitality is a curse rather than a blessing. A human would have been dead long ago. This werewolf is still breathing, still holding onto consciousness by a thread.

Thick, clawed hands grasp at Dean's shoulders and arms, pull him away. Dean grabs at the sword, lets the strength of the 'wolf trying to drag him off its packmate work for him, pull it free from flesh and earth.

Teeth bite into the meat of his shoulder and he throws back his head and yells in pain. He sees the thickly haired head of the 'wolf currently chowing down on his shoulder and from there it’s easy enough to stab the sword in somewhere vulnerable enough to make it let go.

He’s been bitten twice now. By werewolves. Dream werewolves, though. And yeah he dies here, but it’s never from the wounds inflicted. It’s just his heart stops, according to Cas. Like his brain believes it’s dead so it shuts everything down. Like in the Matrix.

There are four werewolves left alive, three left in any sort of shape to fight. They all rush him at once, fuelled by rage and revenge-lust for their dead packmates.

It doesn’t do them any fucking good. He beheads one of them before she can even get near. The other two, older and more grizzled looking, with their fair share of scars, are more canny. They keep a wary eye on his sword, correcting their charges the minute he swings the blade their way.

They exchange glancing blows, nicks and scrapes and flesh wounds, until finally Dean catches a break. One of the werewolves misjudges a lunge, leaves herself open for Dean to sheathe the sword in her ribs. She yelps in pain, distracting her partner, and Dean manages to behead first one, and then the other in quick succession.

Their bodies fall to the ground and so does Dean. His bloodlust is sated now, his head has stopped buzzing but he can’t stay still and let himself think. ‘Cause if he thinks he’ll think about what he did, the _viciousness_ with which he did it. He didn’t just kill these werewolves, he annihilated them. He fucking beat one of them to death.

The sword hums pleasantly in his hand, makes him aware that there’s something missing. There’s no satisfied hum from the Mark, no acknowledgement of a slaughter well executed. It’s silent. He had a suspicion that its power didn’t breach this place, but this. It should be doing fucking cartwheels up his arm, releasing gushes of endorphins and happy fuzzy chemicals. Instead it doesn’t give a shit. Or it isn’t aware.

This isn’t new information. He knows the Mark doesn’t react to what he does here, but he assumed that was because it’s not real. He’s not _really_ killing so it doesn’t care. But the bloodlust the Mark generated carried over here, was slaked by his slaughtering those werewolves. It doesn’t make fucking sense.

He’s hit by a sudden, staggering wave of tiredness. His limbs are full of sand and his eyes won’t stay open. He bites at the insides of his cheeks, digs his nails into his palm and stumbles to his feet. He can’t fucking pass out here, next to a pile of corpses. Who knows what it’s gonna attract.

He goes as far as he can, until his legs are trembling and he can barely stay upright. He picks a climbable looking tree and hauls himself up into the lower branches. He rests there, only for a second, just a fucking second.

And then he’s gone.

 

*

 

Something touches his shoulder and he surges to his feet, lashes out with his fists. He connects solidly with something and keeps on punching, over and over and over. Whatever it is doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even try and dodge. Fuck, man. It’s gotta be something big, something powerful come to rip him into pieces.

He redoubles his attack on the blurry figure, blinking rapidly, trying to resolve it into something tangible, something he can see and quantify and maybe destroy.

His sword, where’s his fucking sword? It’s gone, left him in search of bloodier pastures. Fuck, man. Fuck.

He feels two firm hands grasp his wrists, pin him solidly.

“Dean, Dean! Calm down. It’s us, man. It’s us.”

That voice is familiar. Familial.

Sam. It’s Sam.

 Why is Sam here in the forest, he’s never been here before, what’s going on? FUCK.

He scrunches his eyes shut, struggles to get free.

“DEAN!”

This time when he opens his eyes, he can see. Cas is standing over him, holding tight to his wrists as he struggles to escape. Sam stands a little further back, concern and worry and maybe a little reproachfulness written across his face.

He’s still on edge, still wired and angry.

“Fucking let go of me.” He snaps at Cas, who drops him like he’s suddenly burning at a thousand degrees.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks, with his fucking patronising little head tilt.

“I’m fucking fine.”

He shoves past them and stumbles into one of the empty rooms. He can’t deal with being somewhere that Sam or Cas are right now. He just wants to be on his own. The bloodlust is gone, but the jitters are still there, the itching, nagging irritation in his bones, like he hasn’t slept in days.

He hauls in a few deep breaths and peels back his t-shirt, sweat-glued to his skin. He needs a shower. He needs a shower and a fucking clean sleep. He doubts he’s going to get the second one, but the first is doable.

He sneaks into one of the old, abandoned bathrooms, where he’s least likely to be disturbed. He slips out of his jeans and shirt, runs the water cold. He’s had enough of heat for now.

He steps into the spray, runs his hands through his hair and just stands under the showerhead, unmoving, for a bit.

He feels water lapping up around his ankles and he sighs, thuds his head heavily against the wall. Of course he’d pick the one blocked fucking shower in the entire bunker. He leans down to try and unplug the mess, and notices that the water has a pinkish red tinge.

He’s had enough post-hunt showers. He knows what blood looks like, when it's mixed with water.

Nothing twinges or aches, so he has does a quick visual catalogue.

It doesn’t take him long to find the source. Three shallow, parallel scratches stand out on his right arm, blood still leaking and dribbling. He puts his hands to them and follows the trail. The size is about right. It’s possible he just scratched himself in his sleep. Even though his nails are rounded and blunt. Even though these look like claw marks, like gouges.

He rubs at his shoulder self-consciously. His fingers come away bloody. He can’t get a good look at it from this angle, but he knows what it is. He gets out of the shower, dripping water and blood all over the floor, and looks in the mirror.

On his shoulder there’s a set of puncture wounds. Crescent shaped bite-marks. Canine teeth and a human jaw size.

Werewolf bite.

He strokes his fingers over it, the first physical proof he’s had that this isn’t all in his head. That there’s something real, something supernatural happening to him.

He feels _vindicated._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALSO, I'm still pissed off about Charlie. NO. NOT COOL.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were hoping for something lighthearted and less angsty to make up for 10.22, I am so sorry.

“Cas, it’s only been two days, I think you’re—”

_He grabs the skinwalker by the throat, pulls it up close and screams at it, spittle flecking its terrified face._

“If you tell me I’m overreacting I will break your legs.” He snaps.

_The creature yelps like a dog, doesn’t transform though. It just hangs there, caught in Dean’s grip._

“This is Dean we’re talking about. This is how he deals with his problems. Emotional distance and alcohol.”

_He drops the whimpering creature to the ground, kicks it in the ribs. Waits for it to fight back._

“There’s ‘emotional distance’ and there’s not saying a _single word_ to me for two days.”

_It just lies there, whining pathetically. He kicks it a few times for good measure and gives up. He breaks its neck, lopes off in search of something he can really sink his teeth into._

“What do you mean?” Sam sounds bemused, like this is the last thing he expected.

“I’ve barely even seen him. The back of his head, maybe.”

“You mean you’re not still sharing a room?”

“Not since it all happened, no.”

Sam looks stunned. Not talking about his problems is a standard Dean move, but when times are bad he surrounds himself with family. Closes the ranks in on his little group and clings tight. This is out of character. This is fucking worrying.

“D- do you know where he goes?”

“Just to one of the empty rooms, but both times he’s locked the door.”

“Deliberately keeping you out.”

“It seems that way, yes.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Cas snorts bitterly. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve helped destroy something he loves.”

“Cas, no. Don’t say stuff like that.”

“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?” He snaps.

“He wouldn’t think that of you.”

Cas pins Sam in his death-stare.

“Has he talked to you, since it happened?”

“Uh, not about, y’know, it.”

“Other things, though.”

“Yeah.”

“So he doesn’t walk out of the room when you enter?”

No, but…”

“But what? He blames me, and he’s probably fucking right.”

“Stop it, Cas.”

“I was the one who designed the sigil patterns on the wall. I was the one who interlocked them, assured you it’d be safe. Look how well that ended.”

“I was the one who actually drew them.”

“And look who Dean blames.”

“Cas. This isn’t your fault. This is probably just Dean pulling away from you. Because he thinks the universe is out to get him and he doesn’t want to take you down as well.”

“Then why is he still talking to you? Doesn’t he _care_ about you?”

“Don’t do that, Cas.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s clearly in a bad place, and we have to bring him out of it, not fucking fight with each other.”

 “A few minutes ago you were telling me I was overreacting.”

“A few minutes ago I didn’t realise Dean had iced you out completely.”

“Well he has, so I don’t know how you expect me to keep him functional. I can’t even get him to look at me.”

“I don’t know, Cas. I don’t fucking know.”

“Fucking lot of good you are.”

“Don’t take this out on me, Cas. I’m not the one who’s shutting you out. That’s all Dean.”

Cas punches a wall, but unlike when normal people punch walls, his fist goes completely through it.

“Oh great.” Sam snaps. “Now I’ve got two fucking angry children who break stuff instead of talking about their feelings.”

He pulls in a deep breath, forces himself to at least maintain the illusion of calm. Someone here has to.

“I know you’re upset. I know you’re frustrated that he’s pulling away. So, deal with it. Corner him, make him talk to you, fucking reason with him.”

Cas crosses his arms, glares.

“And how am I supposed to do that? Tie him down?”

Sam sighs.

“Look. I don’t know what the problem is, but I can fling a guess at it. He was happy with you, properly, utterly happy. And then something bad happens. You know what he’s like. He thinks it’s a message from the universe, that he’s not allowed to be happy, that he has to give it up. That’s why he’s avoiding you, still talking to me. And it means that the only person who’s going to be able to convince him otherwise is _you_.”

Cas snorts, disbelieving.

Oh, but Sam would just love to bang their heads together and make them see sense.

“He’s a stubborn asshole and he’s hurting. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you’re just going to have to suck it up and either fucking let him ignore you both into early, sad, miserable graves, or you’re going to have to hound him until he lets you get a word in.”

Sam leaves on that note, mostly because he doesn’t want to get sucked into another argument with Cas about who fucked up worst, and a little because he likes to have the last word.

 

*

 

It’s hard, sleeping without Cas. He’s grown used to having him there, warm, comfortable. Safe. Now his bed is cold and empty, his nights are bitter and miserable. But it’s better this way. Sleep isn’t about rest anymore, it’s about getting to the forest. In the light of day he’s so angry, so impotent. There he’s free. His decisions have no consequences. He can fucking lie down and wait to get torn to shreds, or he can carve a merry path through imaginary bodies.

 He doesn’t worry about the Mark seeping in through the cracks anymore. It revives him, it smoothes away the big, obvious injuries, and then it goes away. That’s the pattern and if it could break through it would have, long ago.

He settles down alone, for the sixth night in a row, and he closes his eyes, wills the forest to come to him.

 

*

 

_He wakes up and there’s some foxlike creature chewing at his leg. He kicks it off and stumbles to his feet, limping heavily on the mangled limb. One of his hands appears to be whole, but the other is a splintered mess of bone and gangrenous flesh. He touches his face with his good hand, feels his teeth poking through the cheek on the right side._

_It’s not the worst shape he’s woken up here in, but he’s not exactly fighting fit, either._

_He limps forward, still following those elusive howls. They’re the only constant, the only thing that never changes. Something drives him towards them, habit, or hope, or rage._

_Something hurtles into him from the side. Another werewolf. She's familiar, a real werewolf that he met and killed a long time ago, but he doesn’t read anything into that. That’s how dreams work; they harvest people, monsters, things from your real life and play them back at you._

_He had a knife when he was here last, but it’s long gone now. Stolen by something, or just his dream brain couldn’t be bothered to create it again. It’s inconsistent. Sometimes he wakes up with the same injuries he had before, sometimes he has less, sometimes he has more._

_The werewolf snarls at him and he rolls his eyes, punches her square in the nose. It’s a new tactic he’s learned. It always gets them, they let go with this confused little look. Like I’m the fucking alpha predator here, why aren’t you screaming for your life?_

_Dean grabs the ‘wolf around the waist and tackles her to the ground._

_“Yeah? Punk?”_

_She snarls at him, and he snarls back. He digs his fingernails into the soft skin of her throat, gouges down hard on a pressure point until she goes floppy, stops struggling. She’s not dead, but she is out._

_He searches her for a weapon quickly, finds a knife tucked into her boot._

_“Oh yeah, baby.”_

_He slits her throat and carries on running._

_It feels good. He’s in control here, for now. This place is an outlet, somewhere he can come and burn away a little of that_ rage, _that helpless, hopeless rage that sparks up and burns whenever he thinks of that empty room._

_He runs until he hits monster again. He’s warmed up now, his leg still hurts, yeah, but the adrenaline is surging up and easing all his aches and pains._

_He doesn’t know what it is at first, something humanish, but then again, aren’t they all, until they get out their claws._

_It doesn’t die at a knife to the chest. Fucking looks down and laughs at him, pushes him back. He lands on his bad leg, fumbles back and onto the ground. It unhinges its jaw, leviathan wide but thankfully otherwise nothing like them. That’s one monster from his memory he can do without seeing. Too many associations, watching that black goo dribble and drip down Cas’s chin._

_No. He can’t fucking think about Cas right now. It wasn’t his fault, probably. It was Dean’s fault, for being weak, for caving in. For taking too much from the universe and not sacrificing anything back in return._

_But if he thinks about Cas his resolve might crumble. So he doesn’t. He just thinks about the next throat he’s going to slit, the next chest cavity he’s going to plunge his hand into and pull out guts, fragments of bone and bits of stomach._

_Or the next throat he’s going to end up falling down._

_“Let’s get this over with, then.”_

_The creature pins him to the ground, buries its teeth in Dean’s shoulder and crunches down. He screams in pain, kicks and punches at it with his good arm and leg, but it doesn’t even seem to notice the blows._

_It doesn’t have to eat him bit by bit. Now that he’s got a closer look at it, he knows what this beast is. A mistodon, he thinks the name is, or something similar. One of the many monsters Benny told him about, when they were travelling through purgatory. They didn’t meet one there, but he said he had, before, in the real world._

_He’d also said they only eat hearts. But, in the same way that the monsters of purgatory liked to play by their own rules – a vampire befriending a human being only the least example – so too do the monsters of his dreams like to torture him in unusual ways. Gnaw at him piece by piece and leave the parts they really want for last. He has a sadistic subconscious._

_Dean’s blows get weaker and black starts to pull at the edges of his vision. Like the beast can sense his fading consciousness (and of course it can, it’s literally in his fucking head) it pulls back, buries its snout in his chest and gouges out his heart, smiling triumphantly. He can see it still beating as the mistodon swallows it whole, not even chewing._

_He lies there, heartless, bleeding steadily into the dust. The mistodon nudges at his midriff, looks like maybe it wants to carry on playing, but then it hears something and scurries off._

_Dean grudgingly closes his eyes, lets unconsciousness take him._

*

 

He comes back to the world screaming and pawing at his chest.

He’s alone, but he can tell Cas is sitting outside the door. Not talking, not asking. Just fucking loitering.

“FUCK OFF, CAS.”

He yells, coughing and hacking – spits blood into his palm.

Cas doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t leave either. It stirs at the anger curled, ever present, in Dean’s gut. He’s so fuckin angry and he has to have an outlet for that. The cathartic effect of the forest is all very well when he’s there. It’s his waking hours that are the problem.

He has to be angry, because the moment he stops being angry, he’ll fucking break down into a sobbing mess on the floor. Anger is the only emotion stronger than grief, the only one that can smother it. So it’s anger he turns to.

He jumps to his feet, runs to the door and unlocks it, hauls it open.

He grabs Cas, drags him up to his feet. And the worst part is, Cas just lets him. If he wanted to still be sitting on the floor, he would be. But he just lets himself go light and limp and floppy, lets Dean pin him against a wall and hiss at him through bared teeth.

“Back. The fuck. Off.”

“No.”

“I mean it, Cas.”

But Cas isn’t listening. He shucks Dean’s grip, grabs hold of his bare arm and stretches it out, to better showcase the healing wound.

“Dean…”

“What, Cas?” He challenges angrily.

“This.”

“It’s just—”

“Don’t you dare try and tell me you got this smashing up those cars.”

“So what if I didn’t?” He shrugs.

“You’ve been getting hurt, bringing injuries back here, and you didn’t tell us?”

And now Cas is angry too. That’s good. Dean can use that, bounce off it, reflect it and hurl it back at him.

“It’s none of your fucking business.”

“I make it my business.”

“What? Because we’re fucking? That don’t entitle you to shit.”

He thinks he sees a little flicker of hurt in Cas’s eyes, but it’s gone so quickly. He wants to stop, oh god, he wants to stop, but he can’t help himself. He’s got so much guilty anger that it’s not enough to turn it in on himself, he’s got to throw it out at everyone else, fuck them all up as badly as he’s fucked up.

“Because I _love_ you, and you’re hurting, and I want to help.”

“I don’t want your fucking help. I don’t need your fucking help. I’m better off without you.”

“You can’t seriously believe that.”

“It’s the _truth_.”

He knows he’s found the point now, the one where if he pushes hard enough, Cas will fragment and crack. Disappear again, and this time never come back to him.

He so nearly goes for it, so nearly digs in and kicks him away once and for all. The words are bubbling up in his throat like acid. _I was happier before I ever met you. I wish you’d died, I wish when you’d died you’d stayed dead. I wish we’d never met._

But he stops, swallows them down and tries to make them settle in his belly, roiling, churning, boiling, burning.

He bites his tongue so hard he tastes blood.

  
  


He doesn't say the words, but from the way Cas is looking at him, he doesn't think he needed to.


	13. Chapter 13

Cas turns heel and leaves, to lick his wounds or to plot his revenge. Dean doesn’t know, tells himself he doesn’t care either. He thinks about trying to get back to sleep, even lies down and tries to will himself back to the forest. It doesn’t work. He’s too awake, too wired and on edge.

He needs a fucking drink, something to steady his nerves.

When he gets to the kitchen he sees that someone has beaten him to it.

Sam is sitting at the table, contemptuous look in his eye. The whiskey is open, half drunk.

“What? Like you have the monopoly on drinking to forget your problems?” He bites out, at Dean’s disapproving expression.

“Yeah, and what fucking problems have you got?”

Sam laughs, harsh and bitter.

“Oh, lets see. My brother is cursed or something, dies in his dreams, only gets revived by the ancient, evil thing on his arm. But that’s not enough for him. He has to be miserable, has to find an excuse to push away the one good thing that’s fucking happened to him in years, because he doesn’t deserve to be happy. Because he says he doesn’t want to drag us all down with him, except that’s gotta be exactly what he wants, ‘cause he keeps fucking doing it.” Sam’s drunk, and angrily belligerent with it.

“You know what, this is none of your fucking business, Sam.”

“Yeah? None of my business that you’re throwing yourself into your nightmares with fucking abandon, coming back beaten and bloody and then searching it out again? None of my business that you’ve driven Cas away, probably for good this time. So thanks. ‘Cause you might be fucking him, but he’s my friend, one of the only ones I have left.”

“Wait, what?”

“What’d you say to him? ‘Cause he looked fucking _devastated_ when he left.”

“He left?”

“Yeah, Dean. He fucking left. Now you can wallow uninterrupted in your stew of misery and hard liquor.”

“Is he coming back?”

“How the fuck should I know? When you fucking nut up and apologise, maybe.”

“Oh yeah,” Dean snarls, whiplashing from concern to anger again. “And what makes you think I’m the one in the wrong here?”

“You are a special kind of stupid. Do you even know why you’re angry at him?”

“I’m not.”

“Oh yeah? Why aren’t you talking to him? Why did he leave?”

“I—”

“I get that you’re upset, but Dean. It’s just fucking photographs. It’s just stuff. It’s not like he fucking killed them!”

“It was all I had left of them, of Mom!”

“No. It was just shit that reminded you of them. What you have left of them is up here,” he points sloppily at Dean’s head “in your fucking memories. “ He pauses for a moment, remembers something. “Except Cas knew that wouldn’t be good enough for you. He spent fucking hours sifting through that rubble trying to find bits of those photographs that’d survived for you. Did you know that?”

“No, but,”

“It’s just fucking _stuff_ Dean. You’re so locked up over mourning fucking bits of paper you’re pushing away the one living person who has a chance of making you happy.”

Dean doesn’t have anything to say to that. He snatches the whiskey up off the table and quaffs it down.

“Yeah, drink some more. That’ll help.”

“Fuck off, Sam.”

“You’re so dumb, willfully fucking dumb. You know he nearly died in that room?”

Dean pales slightly, tries to disguise the shake of his hands with another drag of the bottle.

“You even stop to wonder how the room was destroyed but we were both fine?”

Dean hadn’t. Had been too caught up in his own loss and anger.

“He covered us with his own body, while sigils and bricks were flying around, stayed there until it stopped. Some of those were anti-angel sigils. How do you think that felt, crouched there, over us, being torn apart, so that we’d stay safe?”

Dean opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but Sam beats him to it, doesn’t let him speak until he’s done.

“And then he woke up and you weren’t there with him, so he fucking _crawled_ to the kitchen with a fucking sigil burned into his back, one that I had to cut out piece by piece to break its power. But even in that state, he tried to fight me, made me prove I wasn’t a shifter or monster. Made sure that neither of us were in danger, before he even thought about helping himself.

“And I know you’re mad, but you can’t just fucking lash out at him because he’s the closest thing. Cas didn’t destroy all your stuff. Fucking bad luck and whatever is causing your dreams did.”

 Dean doesn’t say anything, running over what Sam said in his head. Eventually he speaks, half tries to justify himself, and hates himself for it.

“I didn’t know, about any of that.”

Sam doesn’t let him get away with it, like Dean knew he wouldn’t.

“It shouldn’t matter that he nearly killed himself to help you. You shouldn’t need to know that to feel bad for treating him like shit.”

“I don’t know how to stop, Sam.” He admits, quietly. “I can’t, I’m just so fucking angry.”

“Mark angry?”

“No. Like lack of control angry. Like everything is turning to shit and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Sam softens a little, gets up and comes to stand by Dean.

“You’re angry because you’re not letting yourself be upset. Because it’s easier to throw a punch at someone than it is to deal with what you’re feeling.”

Dean reverts back to snappishness.

“What, so you think fucking crying my eyes out for an hour is gonna help? It’s gonna magically make things better again?”

“I don’t fucking know. It’s gotta be better than what you’ve been doing so far.”

Dean scrapes his hands over his eyes, yanks at his hair.

“I need to go after him.” He goes to grab the Impala’s keys from where they rest on the table, is stopped by Sam.

“You’ve been drinking.” Sam points out, slurring slightly, as if he’s just remembered that he has to. “You’re sober enough to drive right now, but you won’t be soon.”

“FUCK!” Dean shouts, all helpless rage again.

“Easy, Dean. Easy. We just have to wait until one of us sobers up, then we can go after him.”

“What if it’s too late?”

“He always forgives you.”

“I told him I was better off without him.”

Sam tries to hide the semi-flinch. He wonders if you have to really love someone to be able to zero in on the worst thing to say to them at any given moment, or if this was just fucking coincidence.

“I was trying to drive him away.”

“You did a good job.”

“I didn’t go as far as I could have. The words were there, fucking trying to climb out of my throat. I nearly told him I wished he’d stayed dead.”

“Did you mean it?”

“No. I don’t think so. Maybe?”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“I don’t think I do, but I must have, to be able to think it, to nearly say it to his face.”

“Or you were just hurt and angry and looking for the worst thing you could’ve said.”

“Maybe.”

Dean doesn’t sound convinced.

“Maybe you should call him.”

Dean groans, like why didn’t he think of that?

“That’s why you’re the smart one, Sammy.”

Sam stopped trying to have this argument with Dean years ago, about the different types of intelligence, but it still really fucking annoys him when Dean sells himself short. He might not be as learned, sure, but he’s exactly as clever in most ways, moreso even in others.

Now really isn’t the time to start that fight again though. Maybe later, when he has Cas on his side.

Dean dials, thinks about what to say as he waits for the phone to connect, for Cas to pick up.

An apology to start with, he thinks.

 

*

 

Cas feels the phone vibrate in his pocket, stops walking. He pulls it out, contemplates it. Dean’s contact picture fills the screen. A photo taken when he was half asleep, loose limbed and happy.

Cas drags the red icon across the screen, cuts the call.

 

*

 

The phone rings for a few seconds, and then disconnects. He tries again with Sam’s mobile, and it goes straight to answer phone.

He snatches up the nearly empty bottle of whiskey again, puts it down again without taking a drink and looks helplessly over at Sam.

“I’ve really fucked it up this time, haven’t I?”

Sam doesn’t agree.

“It’s Cas. He always comes back. Hell, even when he’s been dead, he’s somehow made it back to you.”

“Yeah, except he’s not dead this time. He chose to leave.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

Dean feels the irritation, precursor to true anger, creeping hot and prickly under his skin.

“How the fuck do you think it makes me feel?”

Sam tries a different track. Getting Dean to talk about his emotions is never easy. He doesn’t even know if this will work, he’s not a fucking therapist. He just figures it’s better than letting Dean deal with it himself. It appears he’s finally met the one thing he can’t suppress and carry on past. It really is a testament to his powers of wilful denial that it’s taken this long.

“Tell me one of your memories of Mom.”

That floors him.

“I- Uh.”

“There’s gotta be something.”

“Yeah, but, why?”

Sam doesn’t say what he’s thinking. To prove that just because her photo got destroyed doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten her. To remind you that her memory is more important than a few dots of ink on a bit of shiny paper.

“Because I don’t have that many of my own.”

“Oh.” And now it’s Dean’s turn to go all soft and sad. “Do you think about her then, a lot?”

“I don’t remember her from way back, not like you. All I have is her ghost, meeting her in the past.”

“Better than nothing though, right.”

“Right.”

“She was such a large part of our lives. Even without her, because Dad kept her alive. But, maybe not in the way she’d have wanted.”

Dean looks surprised at his own words, like they slipped out without him even realising. Like his tongue suddenly staged a coup and wrestled control from his brain for a few moments.

A little bit of understanding clicks for Sam.

“Is that why you’re so upset about the photo? Because it reminded you of what she was like when you were little? Helped you hold onto her as you remember her, not the sort of saintly revenge icon that Dad made her into?”

Dean expects the hot flush of anger, defensive rage. It doesn’t come. He waits for it, keeps on waiting. Realises Sam is looking at him curiously.

“I-I don’t know.” He admits.

Sam looks surprised. Like he was expecting a punch, and what he got instead was honesty.

“It sounds like such a cliché, but I keep wondering if I’ll forget her face.”

“I’m not sure it matters.”

“Yeah?” Dean snorts his disbelief.

“She wouldn’t give a shit if you remembered what she looked like. She’d just want you to remember what she _was_ like. And more than that, she’d want you to be happy.”

“I try. It’s hard when every time I get something good, the universe snatches it away.” He says, bitterly.

“Maybe it’s not the universe, Dean. Maybe you’re just not holding on tight enough.”

“Shoulda known it’d be my fucking fault.”

Sam grunts in frustration.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant you’ve got this idea that the universe is out to get you, that it won’t let you have nice things. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that crap.”

“It’s not paranoia if you’re really being followed.”

“Stop trying to deflect me with fucking sayings you know I hate. I’m just saying, the universe wasn’t the thing that got scared and angry with Cas, told him you didn’t need him. That was all you.”

“So you are blaming me.” Dean almost sounds relieved. Picking on Dean Winchester, now that is one of his oldest, most exercised talents.

“If that makes you fucking happy, yes. I am blaming you. I’m blaming you for having shitty coping mechanisms and letting them ruin your own life. Better?”

“Yeah. Much.” There’s no bite to his words any more. For the first time in nearly a week, he doesn’t feel angry. He just feels sad. He realises this, reflexively tries to reach for some hidden pit of irritation to smother it with.

And then he realises what he’s doing. That this is probably what he’s been unconsciously doing all along.

It’s not that he hasn’t felt sad, or it’s not that he’s only capable of feeling angry. He’s been doing it on purpose, without even realising.

Shit. Sammy’s right. His coping mechanisms are bad.

It’s all very well knowing that, but how does he stop?

“Maybe you’re right, Sam.”

The words don’t stick in his throat quite as much as they usually might. He’s tired. Tired of being angry, tired of refusing to be upset, tired of seething with fear that everything he loves is temporary and it’s going to be taken away soon. Tired of wondering whether that means he should enjoy it while it lasts or sever it now before he can get too used to feeling happy.

He wants Cas back. Wants to fucking climb into his arms and be held. He doesn’t care what that says about him. Doesn’t care if it makes him weak, or unmanly, makes him fall short of any of those other difficult, frustrating, often unattainable standards his Dad tried to build into his personality.

Sometimes you just need to be protected by someone else. He doesn’t want to feel ashamed of that anymore.

This is the sort of shit you’re supposed to go through together, with your significant other as support, or a crutch, or fucking whatever. Instead he shoved Cas away and now not only does he not have his support, he has the pain and frustration of Cas not being around, too.

He realises that Sam is looking at him with a mixed expression, like he’s either about to hug him, or test him with silver.

Dean shrugs.

“You’re using booze to deal with your problems, and I’m pretending I’m emotionally mature. First sign of the apocalypse. Oh, wait.”

Sam snorts.

“I’m gonna hug you now.” Sam warns, unsteady on his feet. “Reward for all that personal growth.”

“Punishment, you mean.” Dean grumbles, but he’s lying. He’s a tactile person, and he’s been starved of that recently. The only real contact he’s had has been with monsters who are trying to kill him. It’s not the fucking same.

He lets Sam hug him tight, even pulls his arms up and hugs back.

It feels good to be touched with something other than violence. To be touched with love and concern and understanding.

“Thanks, Sam.” He mumbles into his shoulder.

“Don’t mention it.” He half shrugs.

Dean lets go sooner than he’d like to, before it gets awkward. He wipes the back of his hand over his definitely 100% dry eyes before Sam can see. Sam doesn’t say anything, pretends not to notice the little damp spot on his jacket.

“How about we grab ourselves some coffee and wait it out until one of us is sober enough to drive?” Sam suggests. “We can put on some crap TV while we wait, it’ll be like old times, but more sober.”

Dean snorts.

“Cas won’t even answer my calls. What makes you think he’s gonna want me chasing after him?”

“Is that why you’re not tearing after him on foot?”

Dean looks at Sam like he’s insane.

“Even I can’t outrun a fucking car, Sam?”

“He didn’t take a car.”

“What do you mean, he didn’t take a car?”

“He left on foot. No car, no vehicle. Nothing.”

Dean punches Sam on the arm.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“There’s only one car left in the entire bunker, and the keys are on the table. I thought you’d work it out!”

Dean flushes at the reminder.  He’s going to have to make that his next project, once he’s got Cas back. Fixing things is good, cathartic even. And it’d be a shame to let all those beautiful old cars go to waste. Even more of a shame to get killed by Dorothy when she comes back and sees the state of her motorbike.

“How much of a head start has he got on us?”

“Uh, two hours. Three tops.”

“Okay.” Dean says. “There’s no way we’ll catch him on foot now, but that’s good. Shouldn’t be too hard to pick him up in a few hours when I can drive.” He leaves out the _if he lets me._

The knowledge that Cas is on foot relaxes Dean a little. If he was in a car who knows where he’d be by now, on foot he only has a couple of options. On foot is manageable.

Instead of fretting and buzzing around the bunker impotently, he makes himself sit down on the sofa next to Sam to watch dumb fucking junk TV. And if he sits a little closer than he usually would, so that one of his long legs is gently brushing Sam’s even fucking longer one, Sam doesn’t mention anything.

Dean has always been better at finding comfort through touch than he is through words. He won’t let Sam actively touch him, would shy away if he even thought Sam had noticed, but this he allows himself to accept.

Sam is fine with it, happy to offer whatever comfort he can. He does wish that Dean would for the love of god stop jiggling his leg up and down, but he bears it, because he is a saint. And because it looks like Dean is finally starting to tunnel his way out of the mound of crap that he’d buried himself under. Somehow managed to cap off the exploding volcano of his suppressed issues.

For now, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you guys think of the finale? I can't believe I stayed up until 3 to watch it. Bah. BAH.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY (again)

Cas feels the rumble of the Impala approaching long before any human would. It gives him plenty of time to consider his actions.

Physically it’d be easier to go back with the Winchesters. All he’d have to do is stay, standing here, wait for the car to roll up alongside him. Let Sam climb out of the passenger door and bundle him into the backseat, all concerned and fretting. Try not to catch Dean’s angry, judgmental gaze.

He’d be concerned until the moment he sees that Cas is okay, and then he’d seesaw back to ignoring him and yelling at him. People, and angels, are much easier to love when they’re not around, fucking up your carefully orchestrated way of life, Cas supposes. Trying to mesh their cogs in with yours and instead just jamming the entire mechanism.

Emotionally there’s no question of Cas going back with them. Not yet. He has a course and he’s set on it. He’s not going back to the bunker to be pitied by one resident – simultaneously loved and despised by the other.

Cas shucks off his trench coat and rolls it in the mud, paints his tanned skin over too. Once he’s satisfied he pulls himself up into a tree, arranges himself precisely amongst the thick leaves, covered by his coat. In the dark, from down below on the road, he’ll be pretty much invisible. Now he just waits, for the steady rumble of the Impala, getting louder and louder, and then fading off into the distance.

He repeats this process three times. After that he doesn’t hear the car again.

 

*

 

There is one main road Cas could have taken, two directions he could have travelled in. They don’t mention that on foot he could have cut through the fields or the woods, ended up just about anywhere. Sam thinks it, and he knows that Dean does too, but they don’t mention it.

They take the east road first. There’s more in that direction, assuming Cas is heading off to get a car or some other, vehicular form of transport. Assuming he’s not just planning to walk until he runs out of America.

Dean drives, and Sam phones. Cas doesn’t cancel their calls anymore, just lets them ring out. They’ve chewed up a few miles of tarmac before Sam groans, stops calling and starts fiddling with some list of menus and apps on his mobile.

“What’cha doing there, Sammy?” Dean feigns a nonchalant tone of voice. Shame no-one told his white fingered death-grip on the steering wheel that’s what he was aiming for.

“Seeing if I can track his GPS. Lead us right to him.”

“And?”

“Aaaandd the last time it picked him up was three hours ago, a coupla miles ahead of us.”

“So we’re going in the right direction.”

“I dunno. It’s suspicious that the last ping is so long ago. Maybe he turned it off and doubled back, to throw us off.”

“Or maybe he turned off the GPS to make us think that, second guess ourselves.”

“Or maybe he turned into a fucking flying monkey and flew away.”

“You know what, you are not helpful.” Dean gripes.

There’s no bite behind his words though. Dean feels good, treacherously good. Maybe a little bit of his problem was being shut up, shut in. He hasn’t had a hunt, hasn’t gone out and had a conversation with someone who isn’t Sam or Cas for months. Having something to do feels good, even if he despises himself for that.

 He’s not supposed to be enjoying this.

“So, we know he’s upset, we know he was, at one point, heading east. What does that tell us?” Dean asks.

Sam shrugs, almost lets slip a casual “he’s your boyfriend, not mine.” He thinks better of it, given the circumstances.

“I dunno, Dean. Maybe he just wanted to get a little space, clear his head. For all we know he’s on his way back to the bunker as we speak.”

Dean snorts.

“Yeah? You reckon we should turn around and head home, lay out a welcome buffet?”

“I didn’t say that.” Sam grumbles.

Dean grunts, slows the Impala down to a crawl as they reach the place where Cas’s GPS last pinged. He spots a glint of light, brakes and gets out of the car.

Cas’s phone is wedged in the fork of a tree. The screen is shattered, like maybe someone stamped on it with a heeled dress shoe.

“Oh.” Sam says, coming to stand beside Dean.

Dean doesn’t say anything.

 

*

The angel Castiel quells his grace, stuffs it deep down into the meat of his vessel, of Jimmy Novak’s vacated flesh and bones. It’s been a while since he thought of it like that, though. This body is his now, and Jimmy Novak is up in heaven, resting peacefully, or so he hopes. He’ll have to ask Hannah to keep a special eye out for him, next time he sees her. He deserves his rest. God, they all fucking do.

Cas squirrels his grace away, in little pockets and fragments, dormant but ready. It doesn’t have to be gone entirely, just disguised enough to get what he wants.

He didn’t own a photograph of himself. That set him back by a few hours. He had to traipse into the local village, trawl for small bills and big change across his pockets and feed them into the passport photograph machine.

 

*

He doesn’t adjust the seat for the first one, isn’t ready or paying attention. The person in here before him must have been a small child, whirled the seat up to maximum height, for play or to suit their small stature. It means Cas gets a picture of his scruff and stubble and very little of his face. Probably not good enough, even if it is technically a photograph of himself.

There is mention of an adjustable seat on the instructions on the wall, but no specific directions. He looks under it, for a button or lever or something, is unsuccessful.

He is a warrior of god; he’s watched civilisations rise and fall. He’s blinked and _missed_ civilisations rising and falling. He will not be beaten by a chair.

He rests his hands on it and applies downwards pressure, feels the metal screech and try to buckle. Okay, so not that.

He could crouch down in front of it, squat until he’s level with the little white line on the screen and avoid the chair entirely, but that would be admitting defeat, and he does not admit defeat.

 

*

 

The woman behind the counter frowns quizzically at the photobooth. The guy in it appears to be kneeling down now. She doesn’t think she saw anyone go in with him, no matter much how his feet sticking out under the curtain make it look like he’s giving a not very subtle blowie or something. She’d go over and investigate, only she isn’t paid enough to care and the manager treats her like shit. If someone gets jizz on the curtain it’s not her problem.

 

*

 

He kneels down to examine the underside. There’s a tight spiral groove. A turning mechanism. Cas stands with a satisfied smile. He takes the round seat firmly in hand and spins. The chair shrinks with every turn, until it’s at the right level for a man of his height.

Cas turns to face the screen, and sees that it has timed out, assumed his lack of interaction meant he was satisfied with his photo. He groans, steps out of the booth and waits for it to whirr and hiss and make some frankly alarming clattering sounds as it prints.

He gets four identical, passport sized photos of his chin and neck. He decides to keep them, sure Sam and Dean will find it amusing. He examines them, tries to imagine what Dean would say. He’d probably make a lewd comment about the fading lovebite under his scruff.

Cas frowns, scrunches the pictures up and puts them in his pocket, goes back in the booth and tries again. This time he succeeds.

 

*

 

He rips one of the photographs away from its brethren, jagged little tear marks. He takes a chunk of the one below with it. Great. Now that’s five headless photos he has. Is this the universe trying to tell him something? That he’s directionless? Or running around like a headless chicken? Well, fuck the universe. He’s never listened before, he’s not starting now.

The photo gets dropped in a small wooden box, atop a handful of grave dirt. Chucked unceremoniously on that goes the bone of a black cat – a family pet, long dead, by the name of Guinness – and a twist of fresh yarrow, plucked from a plant that now lives in Cas’s bag and will be returning with him to the bunker.

He crouches down and scoops out handfuls of dirt, lets it flow between his fingers like water as he contemplates the power of ritual. All the things he has here assembled mean nothing on their own, but mix them together, add a little belief, and suddenly you have the means to summon a demon.

He places the box in the dirt, covers it over and steps back.  He counts, one, two, three, four, five, six.

The demon pops up in a show of smoke and flashy lights. It’s wearing an old vessel – female, matriarchal looking – to disguise that this is its first trip above ground since turning. It correctly assumes that humans will take it at face value. It is woefully underprepared for Cas.  Didn’t even take the time to scope him out before smoking to the surface. It assumed that what he seemed, was what he was.

Cas grabs hold of it by the neck, stops tamping down his grace and allows it to lick and curl in his hands. The demon gulps.

“You’re not a human.”

“No.” Cas agrees. “But I have been one. Am enough to confuse you.”

The demon nods jerkily, it’s hard when there’s an angel letting burning grace scrape at your throat.

“What is your name?”

“Sirael.”

Cas nods contemplatively. An unusual name. Chosen after death, he thinks, a last break from its previous human life. Is this one of Crowley’s new policies, perhaps.

“I take it you want something, this isn’t just, y’know, having a bad day and wanting something to smite?”

Cas tells the demon what he wants. The demon gulps.

“This, this aint gonna be easy.”

Cas shrugs.

“How attached are you to your neck?”

“My vessels neck, or?”

Cas stops fighting back his grace momentarily, allows a spark to jump from his skin and to Sirael’s. It howls and flails in his grasp. He waits patiently until it stops.

“So, do we have a deal?”

“What is this in exchange for?”

“Your life.”

“Doesn’t seem fair.”

Cas shrugs. A demon complaining about fair. Wonders never cease.

Sirael sighs, acquiesces. It has no other choice, really.

“So, how you wanna seal the deal? The usual way is—”

“I know what the usual way is.” Cas interrupts, instead relinquishes his grip on Sirael’s neck and grasps its arm above the elbow. The demon looks at him in askance.

“Do as I do.”

It grasps his arm back, and Cas sends a twist of grace outwards, coiling around their arms and binding them together. He lets go when he’s done, wipes his hand on his trousers. On Sirael's flesh there’s a thin, white tattoo-like mark.

“It’ll vanish when the deal is met.”

“I know.” The demon snaps. “I’m a crossroads demon, I know every trap and binding there is.”

Cas snorts, watches it vanish into nothing.

 

*

 

Cas settles down by the roadside and he waits for Sirael to return. He’s there for maybe fifteen minutes, drawing sigils in the dirt with his fingers – a little insurance – when there’s a dribble of smoke. It starts off black, takes a quick tour through the colour spectrum and settles on red.

Cas is on his feet and alert before he’s even really had time to process, as the smoke swells from a dribble to a flood.

“I hear you’ve been terrorising my minions.” Crowley sighs out from behind his curtain of smoke.

“Crowley.” Cas draws his blade, ready to strike.

“Relax. I know whatever you’ve done to Sirael is binding, and Hell always honours its debts. I just came to see what you were up to.”

“None of your business.” Cas spits.

“Now that is just rude.” He steps out of the smoke, examines his fingernails. “Work with me, Castiel. You want certain rare ingredients, I want to keep Hell’s brand trustworthy. Neither of us are prepared to go home disappointed, I suspect.”

Cas grunts.

“Spill.”

“You know the ingredients I need, you know their properties, individual and together. You don’t need me to tell you.”

“Are they all for just one spell?”

“Yes.”

“Not one I’ve heard of.”

Cas shrugs. “It’s new.”

“You’re creating your own spell?” Crowley sounds incredulous.

“I’ve been around for a long time. I know how it’s done.”

“But still…”

“It’s less creating, more modifying.”

“Fixing an existing spell to work on an angel?”

“Perhaps.”

“A spell your kind has never had need of before, because you had wings?”

“Yes.”

“Every time I think you’re done surprising me, little rebel angel, you just go and do something extraordinary.”

“Are we done here?” Cas snaps.

“No. Not quite. I want to know what kind of binding you used on Sirael.”

Cas laughs.

“None.”

“What? But there’s an obligation on her. I _checked._ ”

“It wasn’t a real binding, just a cheap magic trick. A showy twist of grace up her arm and a convincing tone. Enough to make her believe she was under an obligation, and once—”

“—Once both parties believe there is an obligation, so it forms.” Crowley finishes. “You used our own trick against us.”

“I didn’t want to kiss her, and I don’t have a soul to sell.”

“Still mooning over Dean Winchester?”

“Perhaps. You ought to train your soul gatherers more carefully.” Cas snipes. “She tried to pretend to me that she knew all about my “binding”.”

Crowley looks more impressed than annoyed

“Yeah, well, trying to bluster your way out of a bad sitch. Who knows what you’d have tried to exploit if it’d been a real binding and you realised she didn’t know the rules.”

Cas hums a neutral noise, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

“Now, have I satisfied your curiosity? Will you give me what I came for?”

Crowley hmms dramatically.

“I still don’t know what you want the spell _for?”_

“Enough!” Cas snaps, eyes burning blue with grace.

Crowley lifts his hands, placating, thrusts out a bag.

“Consider your deal with Sirael settled. And don’t think that little trick will work again. Next time you want something, you come to me directly.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

Cas snatches the offered bag, flips through the contents. By the time he looks up, satisfied, Crowley is gone.

 

*

 

Cas returns to the bunker in the dead of night, his rucksack full of bartered treasures and ingredients. And a yarrow plant. He comes on foot, with all the stealth that he can muster. Just because he wants to return, does not mean he wants to be known to be doing so.

He returns as a thief in the night to his own home, disabling wards and barriers and then carefully rebuilding them once he has passed. He wants to get in without being noticed. He doesn’t want the Winchesters to die in their beds because of it.

He makes his way gently down to the dungeon, clinks the door shut and draws a sigil on it, so that it can only be opened from the outside, by either Sam or Dean. If all goes well, one of them can let him out. If it does not, well. Spells can be unpredictable, especially ones built by someone with a millennia of tangential knowledge of spellcraft. It’s unlikely that he’ll accidentally let in some greater or lesser evil tonight, but if he does, he’d rather the doors were locked against it.

 

*

 

Cas takes out his ingredients and lays them in a neat little row on the floor. The first ingredient he doesn’t actually have yet, but it’s simple enough for him to generate, and he assumes the fresher it all is the better.

He looks at the piece of paper by his crossed legs, the list of ingredients is careful and precise, but the weights and measurements are fluid. Magic is not a fixed science, and despises being treated as such. A good spellcaster simply assembles the ingredients, and lets them talk to him, direct him and serve him as they ought. This is the bit he is uncertain of, unpractised at.

All he knows is that the first ingredient is an angel’s feather. He’ll start there, and see where the spell takes him.

Of course, ‘feather’ is a ridiculously simplistic way of describing what he’s about to create. Cas drags the nail of his index finger softly up and down his arm, concentrates and slowly draws the finger away from the skin. Behind it pulls a stringy trail of grace, drawing up and away from his arm but still attached. He tugs it up until the trail is about 5 inches in length, and then he severs it – cuts it off entirely, both from his own body and from the angelic host. Without a connection to heaven there is nothing to keep it fluid, and it solidifies instantly, adopting, he supposes, a shape that could be said to resemble a feather.

Still, it isn’t a feather. It’s grace made solid, grace torn from its source of power and life. Dead grace.

He drops the ‘feather’ into a bowl carved from the shin bone of an Acrocanthosaurus, wets them both with some of his own saliva and blood. His hand hovers over the vial of mixed sand for a moment, uncertain, but then he pours it in. Most of the falling grains are from an hourglass, preserved since the fall of Alexandria and now shattered to fulfil Cas’s needs, the rest, a few, sparing pinches, come from the sands of all time themselves.

The sand soaks up the blood and the spittle, dyes itself a crimson hue.

To this mixture he adds the gel of an aloe vera plant, not the sap, which had been his original ingredient here, until the helpful woman in the garden centre informed him that it was the gel that had the healing properties, and the sap was only good if you wanted to give someone diarrhoea. From the look on her face, Cas suspected she had done so, several times.

He stirs together the sticky, goopy mess with the twice broken, and twice healed, forearm bone of a man who has been dead, by Cas’s estimate, for nearly 500 years.

He lays down the bone spoon and takes up a match, strikes it and drops it into the mixture. It burns with a vivid red flame, the colour of the blood fed to it.

Now for the final ingredient. Cas removes a little ziplock bag from his pocket. In it are crumbled and scorched fragments, handfuls of ash. The charred remains of the photographs that, to Cas’s mind, started this whole issue.

He’s not stupid, he knows that he won’t just get them back and things will magically be perfect, he and Dean will be happy, the nightmares will stop. But, hell, it’s atonement. He needs to do this to get Dean’s forgiveness, to get his own forgiveness.

He tips the ashen fragments into the fire, whispers a few words of enochian.

_Flame destroyed you. Flame restores you._

Nothing happens for a few moments, the flames flicker as before. Everything stays, unchanging, unburning.

Then a little corner of paper catches. The flames sear black and then to hungry, angelic grace blue. Cas feels a drawing, dragging sensation in the centre of his chest. It bypasses his grace entirely – the intended power source – targets instead the little snarled remains of human soul clinging to his spiritual architecture.

He folds forwards, nearly head-butts the bowl. Sparks gutter and fly around and there’s a crash. A yell of something, fear, spiritual pain, pushes its way out of his mouth. _He has fucked up._ Something has, as ever, gone wrong. He’s let Dean down again.

It’s his last thought before he collapses to the ground, and thinks no more.

 

*

 

Dean hears the shout first.

He flings himself out from under the hood of Aston Martin where’s he’s spent the last three days, since they returned from their hunt for Cas, working off his anger and frustration and fear. Fixing things to try and fix himself. The mechanics cure.

He’s in the corridor before he realises he doesn’t know where the noise came from. Sam joins him a moment later, wide eyed and every bit as worried.

There’s a bang from the basement and they share a look of oh holy fucking shit and race towards it.

The door is shut, but it opens of its own accord at a simple touch from Sam.

Dean shoves past him, too much fear and worry to be concerned about manners. There’s a large, carved bowl in the centre of the room, grace blue flames guttering and burning low within it, fading. Dean ignores them, goes straight for Cas.

He’s lying on the ground, eyes open but unseeing, cloudy and blind. A thick trail of blood winds from his nose, along the floor and towards the gutter.

Dean feels his wrist. There’s a faint, barely there pulse, but no rise and fall of his chest. Dean holds a hand in front of his nose and mouth. There’s no air being expelled.

Cas isn’t breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am such an arsehole. There isn't going to be a chapter next week because I will either be in or around Berlin for a music festival, and because I'm there for the entire week, I _might_ not even have time to write a chapter for the thursday after I AM SO SORRY. 
> 
> I carried on writing where I usually would have ended this chapter specially because I wanted to make it a little longer to make up for next week. And it turns out that this was the next natural end point. I am sorry I am king arsehole of wanker hill.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN ENTIRE DAY EARLY (or 2 weeks late depending on your perspective but ssshhhhhh)
> 
> SORRY FOR THE HORRIBLE BREAK, I got really caught up in my DCBB last week because of TERRIBLE PANIC that I'm not going to finish it in time and by the time I'd caught up with myself a bit it was thursday and I only had the first paragraph of this chapter written.

The flames die out to nothing before Sam can get near them, but he kicks the bowl over anyway for good measure. He’d salt and burn it too, if he didn’t think that’d compound the fucking problem.

Something that isn’t dust and ash tips out of the bowl – a few bits of glossy, unburned paper. He knows what they are, but he still gingerly fishes them out to get a close look. He drops them almost immediately - they’re red hot, enough so that he thinks he might just have burned off his fingerprints.

He gets enough of a glimpse to confirm his suspicions though. Dean’s photographs.

Son of a fucking bitch.

If Cas lives through this, he’s going to kill Dean. If Cas doesn’t live through this, well, no punishment Sam can dish out will be worse than that.

Really, what the _fuck_ have they done to him? And it is _they_ ; he can’t put all the blame on Dean’s shoulders.

But how badly must they have treated him, how much work, how much carelessness and callousness must they have invested in him to ruin Castiel, angel of the lord, force of will and warrior implacable. To convince him that this is an acceptable trade – his life for a handful of fucking photographs.

Even Dean wouldn’t pull this sort of stunt. He’d sacrifice every bit of his own happiness for that of his family, sure, but he’d draw the line at laying down his fucking life for anything less than another life in return.

They’ve treated Cas so badly that he has even less self-worth than Dean, for fucks sake.

God, they have a lot to make up for.

 

*

 

He isn’t dead. He’s fairly sure of that.  He’s not quite sure he’s alive though. Somewhere in between, perhaps. He’s distantly aware that there are things happening to the body he inhabits, but there’s no connection. He feels loose, untethered. Like he’s one stray thought from turning into gas and floating gently away into the sky, dispersed into a million molecules.

He knows that he had a name once. He thinks it’s probably something important, something that should be remembered. The more he strains after it, though, the looser he feels. Better to concentrate on holding himself together for now. When his memories come back, he’ll need some kind of frame to hang them on. A scattered multitude of freewheeling molecules wouldn’t have much use for a name or a history. He supposes that they’ve already had and lost more of those than he can comprehend – what’s one more to the pile?

He doesn’t think he’s dead, but he doesn’t have a basis to compare it with, so how would he know?

 

*

 

Dean fits his arms under Cas’s back and legs and carries him out of the basement. He gets stuck in the corridor, doesn’t know where to take him. He doesn’t feel like he has the right to take him back to the room they shared, but he doesn’t want to put him somewhere unfamiliar.

Eventually Sam groans, pushes him in the direction of the shared bedroom.

“We’re gonna talk.” He warns. “When he wakes up.”

“He was just trying—” Dean leaps to Cas’s defence.

“I wasn’t fucking talking about Cas.”

Dean nods. Yeah, he knows he deserves this, isn’t even going to try and wriggle out of it.

 

*

 

He feels a little more solid, anchored by some mystery force.

He can feel _something_ too, something tangible, although he’s not sure what. A sensation maybe, something on the back of his neck.

He can’t tell what it is, but he knows it’s something. That’s a start, he guesses.

 

*

 

He’s still not breathing, but his heart beats. Slow, steady, reliable. Dean knows what that heartbeat is supposed to feel like, has spent night after night pressed up against it, letting it echo around his head. This isn't quite that, is maybe two, three times slower. It’s still there, though. That’s a good sign.

He lays Cas down on the bed, pulls off his shoes and massages his feet.

He’s not very good at saying sorry with words. It never comes out right, his tongue gets heavy and thick, his throat dry and scratchy. He can say sorry with his hands, though. He can brush Cas’s hair from his face, trail his fingers across the rough stubble of his cheek, settle his clothes across his body more comfortably, draw up the blankets around him.

Dean slips under the covers too, curls around Cas and hums in his ear, songs he’ll find familiar, songs he won’t. That angry little voice in Dean’s head tells him to back away, that he doesn’t deserve to touch Cas after the way he treated him. He silences it. He’s learning that sometimes you have to put other people in front of your own castigation. Punish yourself, fine. Don’t drag everyone else down with you.

 

*

 

Warmth, he thinks. That’s the name of the sensation he can feel in the furthest depths of his extremities. Nowhere else though. It’s a start, right?

 

*

 

“I don’t think you two should spend the night in here alone.” Sam tells him from the door.

“Don’t trust me?” Dean asks, unsurprised. He doesn’t make the obvious joke, and that more than anything convinces Sam that he’s right.

“Cas is vulnerable, and you could get violent in your sleep, if you dream.”

Dean nods, starts to untangle himself from the covers.

“I wasn’t saying you should leave.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll drag the sofa in. If anything happens I can get Cas out and lock the door.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for me to go?”

“I don’t think either of you should be left alone right now.”

“What, worried I’ll take off in the night?” He tries for anger, but it doesn’t come. He’s glad, when he catches himself. He’s supposed to be moving away from this pointless rage, not feeding it.

“No. I think he’s in a coma, and you’re about three steps away from having an emotional breakdown, and I’m staying here to make sure neither of you do anything stupid.”

“He’s in a coma, how could he do anything stupid?” Dean doesn't rise to the breakdown comment, but it's hard. God, it's hard.

Sam gives him a look. It has been a very long and very emotional day. I’m worried for my friend, and I am very tired, but, if I have to, I _will_ sit here and explain to you, with diagrams, my reasoning as to why I believe the combined power of yours and Cas’s stupidity is literally the strongest force on earth. Stonger than comas and stronger than true love. Stronger than the fucking gravitiatonal pull of the sun.

 Instead he just says.

“Shut up and go to sleep, Dean.”

 

*

 

Dean doesn’t go to sleep, because tired as he might be, there’s nothing he can do about the creeping, pervading fear in his gut. Cas is in a coma. Comas are bad news. Sometimes people don’t wake up from comas – and that’s people, who actually need to sleep.

The last time he saw Cas comatose like this, was when he was falling, when he expended too much energy and nearly killed himself.

Sounds about right.

 

*

 

He feels things now. Puffs of breath on the back of his neck, fingers massaging his slack flesh. It feels nice. There’s something else too, rumbling vibrations, music or words or something. That’s nice too.

 

*

 

Sam stays awake and watches. Cas is still as a board, or the dead, or whatever too close to home simile you want to label him with. Dean isn’t. He has his back to Sam, but he’s twitching. Little uncomfortable shifting movements that let Sam know he isn’t asleep. That he’s lying there and worrying.

Cas will be fine. He has to be. He always is. He’s not dead this time. It’s a vast improvement, really. A near death experience is better than an actual death one, probably.

Eventually Dean’s breathing evens out, but then something even more peculiar happens. The muscles of his back start to twitch and jump, subtly at first, so Sam doesn’t even notice, and then more dramatically. Like there’s something reaching, flexing, beneath his shirt.

Sam laughs out loud. The stress is clearly fucking getting to him. Yeah, sure Sam. Dean has some kind of fucking Venom alien parasite bubbling under his skin. He needs to stop reading so many fucking weird comics.

He laughs, but that doesn’t stop him wanting to go over there and twitch up Dean’s shirt, fucking check.

It’s not paranoia—

No. He fucking hates that phrase, he isn’t going there.

 

*

 

Sometimes the grounding sensation goes away. Never for that long, but sometimes it does. It makes him nervous, reluctant to stop concentrating on keeping his grip on his body, to start sewing his mind back in, layer by layer.

 

*

 

“Hey, Cas.” Dean mutters into his neck. “I know you’re supposed to talk to people in comas, so, yeah. I don’t even know if you’re in a coma – you’re not breathing or anything. Heart still going strong though, so there’s that. I dunno what’s normal for angels.

“But yeah, um. Your spell worked, kinda. I don’t know exactly what you were going for. Can kinda guess.”

He trails off, drums his fingers against Cas’s ribs.

“It wasn’t worth it, man. Nothing’s worth, y’know. This. And I didn’t mean any of that shit I said, promise. I was pissed off, y’know. Not with you – even if that’s what I made it sound like.

“You know I’m a mess, man. And that’s not an excuse, I don’t mean to make it sound like one I promise. S’not what I’m trying to do.

“I fucked up, Cas. And I’m gonna do better. I promise.”

He brushes a light kiss to Cas’s nose.

 

*

 

He feels steady now. He recognises what everything means, light touches, harder touches. tender words mumbled into his neck at night, wet tears dripping onto his shoulder, desperate, pleading tones, forced jollity.

It doesn’t mean anything, though.

He’s processing, he just isn’t _feeling._

 

*

 

“Sam’s on the warpath. He’s not saying anything, ‘cause he knows I’m not doing too hot right now, but it’s the little things, y’know. I can tell he’s pissed. He’s even less subtle than you, and that’s saying something.

“Jesus, I wish you were pissed at me. I wish you’d stormed out that door and never come back. It’d be better than this.

“Maybe that’s why I was tryna drive you away. ‘Cause I knew you’d be better off without me.

“You’d have been so pissed off with me if I’d said that to you. You’d have frowned at me and spouted some nice flowery crap that should be cheesy but made me feel better anyway.

“Wonder if you’d say the same sort of thing now.”

 

*

 

He knows that voice. It’s familiar, achingly, hauntingly so. It always brings a mess of emotion welling up from the pits and valleys of his body. Love and fear and upset and distress. The body recognises him, the mind draws a blank. How can a voice that means nothing to one, mean so much to the other?

 

*

 

He waves his hand in front of Cas’s dead eyes, taps him on the shoulder. He flicks the lights off and on, whacks up the temperature and tries to freeze him out. He pinches his nose shut to see if he's just breathing too shallow for them to notice, prods him in the side, jabs at his ribs and does everything short of actually hurting him.

“One hell of a temper tantrum you’re throwing there.” Dean says, as he flicks his ears, tickles his feet and the backs of his knees.

Sam looks up from his chair and smiles, pretends he can’t see that Dean’s eyes are watering.

Cas stays blank, implacable.

 

*

 

Cas. His name was Cas.

It didn’t used to be Cas. It used to be something else.

It used to be Theo.

There’s no Theo left now.

Then it was Adina.

There’s no Adina left now.

Maybe there’s no Cas either.

Maybe that’s why he feels so blank.

 

*

               

The emptied grace finishes pulling itself back together, healing. It steels itself, casts around for the nearest angelic trace to latch onto, to become. Finds something close by, dormant and scattered among the skin and bones of a nearby vessel. It knits into the not-quite-right flesh, courses sluggishly through Cas’s body and picks up all the dribbles and traces of him scattered in the tissue. Accepts him.

To steal an angel’s grace is to try and erase that angel, overwrite it with yourself like old files on a hard drive. Unlike a computer memory, it never works perfectly. There’s always kickback, there’s always a rough and bloody fight.

It comes at a price – immense damage to both the thief and the thieved. One of them always ends up dead, sometimes both.

This is the second time this grace has had its angelic stamp ripped away.

Luckily for Cas he’s been living in this skin for a long time, when the shock of the spell ripped him out of his ill-fitting grace, he had somewhere else to turn to. This body recognised him, allowed him to rest, dormant, in its flesh and muscle.

So, when the empty, hungry, twice-erased grace was repaired enough to seek out something to fill itself, to grant angelic purpose and point, Cas was the first thing it found.

And so that’s what who it became.

And unlike before, it did so properly. Taking an occupied grace by force, that’s a vicious process. It damages both parties, and leaves both worse off in the long run.

A grace that’s been empty and blank, left to recover and heal and then sought out completion. Well, it’s not as good as having his own grace back, but rough around the edges and halfway to fallen is better than decaying and halfway to dead.

Good intentions don't only pave the road to Hell. Sometimes they lead to something better.

 

*

 

He breathes. One, two, three, four.

Dean doesn’t notice at first, asleep on his chest. Eventually, subconsciously, he feels something, starts to stir.

Cas touches him gently on the cheek, smiles.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes snap open and all the air slips out of him in a hushed sigh.

“Cas…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was it worth the wait? I hope so, I'm sorry xoxoxox
> 
> (my festival was amazing, btw, I got to see Rise Against and it was so fucking good and I crowdsurfed their last song which also happened to be one of my favs and I timed it so perfectly that I landed in front of the stage and did a running jump out of the photopit as they played the last chord and it was so fucking cool and I know you don't care but it was AMAZING)


	16. Chapter 16

Dean lets himself have thirty groggy seconds of closeness to Cas, and then he shies away, fumbles out of the bed and pretends he wasn’t just caught cuddling up close.

“I, uh. I should go tell Sam. He’ll be glad to know you’re awake, man.”

He slips out of the door, closes it behind him with a gentle click.

Cas blinks owlishly after him, trying to smother the feeling of abandonment.

Whatever the spell did, it doesn’t seem to have fixed things between him and Dean. Changed them, perhaps, but he isn’t sure how much of an improvement it is. Rage and bitter words verses avoidance and awkwardness.

The spell has done other things though. For the first time in a long while, he can breathe without feeling the air in his lungs being poisoned. The irradiated pit at the centre of him, spilling out and leaking into everything else, is gone.

The damage is still there, but the source, the toxic sludge dissolving him from the inside, has been wiped away. It won’t get any worse from here. It might even, if he’s really lucky, get better. He can already feel his body trying to knit itself back together, deep in its core.

He knows the damage he’s done to himself will never completely be healed, and if he becomes human, he’ll have to be careful. He’ll have a weak heart, or bones, or possibly everything. But for now, it’s good enough. More than, perhaps.

 

*

 

“Your grace is what, sorry?”

“Fixed, in a way.”

“In a way meaning what?” Sam asks incredulously.

“I’m weaker than I have been, but my grace is no longer finite.”

“You’re telling me all we had to do to juice up your batteries was knock you out for a week?” Dean scoffs, because it’s easy to cover emotion with insincerity.

“No.” Cas flicks a glare at him. “All you had to do was forcibly tear me and my stolen grace asunder, leave me dormant and possibly unreachable in a human body, and wait, on the one thousand to one chance that when the grace had recovered, it would bind itself to my consciousness _willingly_ this time.”

“So it wasn’t willing before?” Sam asks, before any fights can get started.

“It’s complicated.” Cas shoots back.

“Uncomplicate it.” Sam says, brusquely, but not unkindly.

Cas sighs. He felt restored and refreshed when he woke up, but this conversation, twinned with Dean’s skittish behaviour, is conspiring to give him the makings of a migraine. And angels are almost physiologically incapable of getting migraines, so it’s a testament to how wearing today has been so far.

“Stealing another angel’s grace is an abhorrent act. One which has hideous consequences attached to it in order to deter the less scrupulous.”

Dean frowns at the little self-loathing catch he thinks he hears in Cas’s voice there, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Grace is different to a human soul. It’s more like a power source, but a specially tailored one.” He casts around for an example, lands on something from his pop culture rolodex. “When I stole Theo, and then Adina's grace, it was like taking the triple-A batteries out of an electrical item, and using tinfoil to force them to provide power for something that requires double-A batteries. A cheap solution that works in the short term, but that eventually causes the batteries to leak acid and eat away at the innards of the product.”

“I get that, the grace didn’t fit, you were stretched thin, and that’s why you got so run down and damaged.” Sam muses. “But how did separating you off from it somehow make it bind properly to you?”

“Because when I accidentally rended myself from the grace, it was left with no angelic influence, so it reverted to a, um, ‘factory setting’.” He makes air quotes, and Dean tries his hardest not to laugh. This is a serious conversation.

“All grace starts out mostly the same; it grows and changes as we do. Removing an angel’s grace from our body doesn’t usually wipe it clean, though. You have to introduce it to another, stronger angelic force of will in order to do that.”

Sam and Dean exchange a glance. There’s no arguing that Cas is the strongest force of will either of them have ever met.

“So when I committed those heinous acts, took in those two graces, I forcibly wiped all trace of the original angels from them. They recognised that as an attack, and resisted, refused to mould to fit me properly.

“This time, when I – the ill-fitting angelic element that the grace had been struggling to resist – was removed, there was nothing to replace it. In this circumstance, the grace retreated to a place of safety, restored to its ‘factory settings’, and then sought out the nearest angel-like being to bind itself to.”

“That makes no fucking sense.” Dean can’t stop the words from spewing out of his mouth.

“Grace isn’t like a human soul, it can’t exist isolated and without purpose. It needs a heavenly driving force behind it, something to shape it and guide it.”

“And in this case, that happened to be you?” Dean asks.

“Yes.”

“That’s a whole heap of lucky.” Sam muses, almost suspiciously.

Dean knows he’s being a twat, decides to stop punching gift horses in the mouth.

“It’s about fucking time we had some luck between us.” He says.

“I’m suspicious when things happen this conveniently.” Sam shrugs. “It never ends well for us.”

“Yeah, well. If it does go tits up let’s face it, we’ve got plenty of experience handling this kinda crap.” Dean replies flippantly.

Cas doesn’t say what he’s thinking, that yes, he might not be dying slowly from the inside out anymore, but that doesn’t mean they’re in the clear. They still aren’t any closer to dealing with the problem posed by the nightmare forest. Aren’t even any closer to figuring out what it is, or why it's haunting Dean's dreams. How it's recently become strong enough to pull its effects over to his waking life.

 

*

 

“So,” Sam begins, in the tone that Dean knows means he should be sprinting away as fast as he can. “Cas is awake.”

“Yeah. He is.” Dean knows the almost pathetically grateful relief in his tone isn’t going to save him, but he hopes Sam will at least have mercy.

“You know what this is about, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not saying it’s all your fault.”

“That’s nice of you.” Dean’s tone is sincere, even if his words aren’t phrased that way.

“It isn’t. You didn’t help, treating him like shit like that, but this is a bigger problem.”

“Sam, the guy nearly killed himself – accidentally or otherwise – because I made him feel so guilty about something that wasn’t his fault. I get it.”

“It’s not just that, though. It’s a whole fucking series of things. If we hadn’t treated him so badly in the past, sent him away when he needed us, left him to fend for himself , maybe it wouldn’t have come to this. Maybe he’d have come and talked to me, or tried to make it up to you another way, instead of going off alone, pulling a spell out of his ass and doing god alone knows what else.”

“What do you mean, what else?”

Dean hasn’t put it together quite yet. He doesn’t have all the information, was too busy fistfighting his own guilt down to a manageable level to go and look at the place it’d be strongest, the place Cas nearly fucking died.

“Dean, the ingredients he burned for that spell – I saw the list on the floor. They’re rare. Stuff he couldn’t just zap off and get anymore.”

“What’re you saying?”

“I’m saying that I cleaned the dungeon out, and some of the things he left in there weren’t for that spell. Some of them looked very familiar, the sort of stuff you’d bury in a box at a crossroads.”

“You think he sold his soul for some spell ingredients? He doesn’t even have a fucking soul, Sam.”

“Of course he didn’t sell his soul—”

“You think he stole someone else’s soul? Jesus, Sam. No. He wouldn’t do that shit. Not after purgatory and that whole fucking mess.”

“No I don’t fucking think that.” Sam groans in frustration. “I think he went out and tricked a demon, on his own, without back-up. That could have gone really fucking wrong.”

Dean deflates a little, lets the righteous anger that had been coursing through him at what he thought Sam was saying gust away.

It’s only been a little over a week, and he’s already getting better at this letting go crap. It helps, he thinks, when you know what to look for. Step one, admitting you have a problem blah blah blah.

“Yeah, it could have.” Dean agrees.

“We need to treat him better, make sure he knows that we have his back.”

“We do have his back.”

“Then we should act like it every now and then.”

Dean doesn’t disagree.

 

*

 

Dean wants to kiss his apologies into the cracks in Cas’s skin. He wants to show him, from head to foot, body and soul, how much he means it. But, now that Cas is awake, Dean isn’t sure where they stand. When Cas was asleep he stuck close, because Sam told him it was okay, because Cas wasn’t able to tell him it wasn’t. Now, well, he doesn’t know.

Dean hovers around him, tangential. There but reluctant to reach out until Cas does something first. He stutters and starts, reaches out and then pulls himself back.

Cas tolerates this for a few hours, this awkward, stuttering presence orbiting around him, following him from room to room but never talking to him, dropping his gaze when Cas tries to meet his eye. Eventually he decides he’s had enough, turns to Dean with a sigh.

“I understand if you’re angry, if you don’t trust me to be here on my own.”

“Angry? Cas – I’m not—”

“I performed an undocumented, unpredictable spell in your home. I should have done it elsewhere. Anything could have happened. You have a right to be upset.”

“If you’d done it somewhere else we might not have found you. Shit, man. That’s not why I’m  up– I’m not upset. Well, no. I am upset.”

Cas waits patiently while Dean stammers through his verbal diarrhoea.

“I’m upset because you were in a **_coma._** ”

“I’m sorry for worrying you.”

“Jesus, Christ. Cas, that’s—”

“But this can’t carry on.”

Dean knows what being stabbed feels like. He knows this isn’t it. Doesn’t stop him reflexively glancing down, looking for the blood.

“Are you breaking up with me, Cas?” He croaks out.

Something snags and breaks in his chest and he can feel his heartrate increasing, pounding, roaring – like if it gets loud enough and fast enough he won’t be able to hear Cas’s reply and this won’t be happening.

“I love you, Dean, but—”

He doesn’t hear the rest of the sentence over the ringing in his ears – the sickening, pervading ache in his gut.

“Dean?” Cas frowns at him. “Can you hear me?” Cas’s voice sounds distant. Maybe he’s already on his way out. Throwing the words over his shoulder as a parting shot. Dean probably doesn’t deserve much more.

“You’re really starting to worry me, Dean. Please, say something.”

What is there to say? He’s fucked this up, fucked it up so royally that Cas is going to go. Dean’s driven him away and now he’s juiced up he’s gonna go back to heaven and probably rule it at Hannah’s side like he was supposed to, like he would have if Dean hadn’t dragged him away.

And Dean’s probably never going to see him again.

He nearly swallows his tongue, but he manages to choke the words out.

“I fucked up, Cas. I get that. And if you want nothing more to do with me after the way I behaved, well, I get that too.”

He tries to smile, thinks it probably comes out as more of a grimace.

Cas frowns at him softly, and then closes his eyes as understanding clicks.

“Dean, I’m not going to leave you—”

The relief in Dean’s chest is instantaneous and fierce. It’s the sweetest thing he’s felt since he pulled himself out of his own grave, took those first gulps of sulphur free air for forty years.

“—this time.”

And back down to earth he crashes.

“This time?” He echoes, meeting Cas’s eye for the first time since he woke up. There’s something very old and very deep in those eyes, an emotion that he can’t even give a name to. It doesn’t make Dean any less edgy.

“I love you, but I can’t do this if every time something goes wrong, you flip out and push me away. It hurts, more, I think, than a clean break would.”

Cas is lying, in a way. A clean break would be the worst pain he could fathom. Worse than being torn apart by Leviathan, worse than the disappointed, heartbroken look on Dean’s face when his betrayal was discovered, worse than Sam’s hellpain. But it would mute itself eventually. Fade to a dull ache. Dean blowing hot and cold, being caring the one day, glacial and distant the next, furious the day after, that would be a constant, vicious existence, and he has no desire to suffer through it. Not even for the good parts.

Angels aren’t as good at dealing with emotions as people are. Cas has them now, is getting better at them, but he doesn’t quite have the same processes in place as any normal human who’s grown up and learned how to feel and how not to feel, might. He feels things too deeply, or not deeply enough.

He is also, amongst other things, a realist. He knows that the smooth parts of their lives are the exceptions. The extraordinary circumstances, the bad patches, these days they appear to outnumber the good. If Dean turned around and lashed out at him every time a hunt went badly, or events conspired against the three of them, well. There’d be few days that Cas emerged through unscathed.

 “I know that, Cas, man. I’m fucking shit. This is what I do, I can’t deal with the bad stuff, I let it consume me, fuck me up so bad that I start doubting the good stuff, fight it back and push it away.”

“Don't call yourself shit, Dean, because you're not. And I love you, I do. But I won’t sit by your side and let you lash out at me and then try and redeem yourself over and again. I took it when you treated me badly before, but it has to be different now - or I go."

“I know that.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Cas crosses his arms, issues it like a challenge.

“I’m going to talk to you, next time something upsets me.” Dean hedges.

“And?”

“And I’m not gonna bottle up my emotions or smother them with booze until they explode and fuck everything up.”

“And?” Cas’s tone is pointed, verging on angry.

Dean’s floundering now. He knows he needs to get this right – Cas is a few wrong words from breaking up with him for fucks sake – but he can’t think what else Cas might want from him.

Cas grits his teeth. Dean brings his hand up to rub his neck, a nervous gesture. As he does, he catches sight of the half-healed wounds on his arms. It clicks.

“Oh, shit. Cas. I didn’t even – I haven’t been to the forest since you left – and I haven’t been trying, I promise.”

Cas squints at him, long and hard, trying to read his face, gauge whether he’s telling the truth or not. Like he’s not sure whether he trusts what Dean is telling him.

Yeah, Dean gets that.

“Look, I get it, I lied to you, I pushed you away, I deliberately put myself in harm’s way, and I said some really nasty shit to you. It’s gonna take you a while to trust me again.”

“I do still trust you.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve done as bad – worse. I’d be a hypocrite to hold it against you.”

“Are you telling me that you’re logic-ing away your emotions.”

“Maybe.”

“Alright, Spock.”

“I understood that reference.”

Dean smiles slightly, still uncertain as to whether he’s allowed to reach over and touch Cas.

“I miss you more than I distrust you.” Cas says. And that’s all Dean needs to hear.

“I miss you too.” He folds him into a hug, feels Cas sigh into it.

He buries his face in Dean’s neck and he just breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not have been sitting in the garden with a beer (or several) before editing this so let me know if there are any mistakes xoxox


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some gratuitous porn as an apology for all the horrible, horrible angst.
> 
> NB: Also contains a small amount of plot.

They stay folded together like that for longer than either would care to admit. They’ve missed each other, the solid, physical presence of the person they love. Dean can actually feel the tension easing out of his body with every breath – he hadn’t realised how tightly wound this was making him, how much he just needed Cas’s fucking touch.

“I love you.” He mumbles into Cas’s ear.

“Yeah, well, act like it.” Cas replies into his neck, latching onto a bit of skin and worrying at it with his teeth in a just the right side of painful nip.

“Promise,” Dean replies, as Cas soothes his tongue over the mark, tastes the iron tang of blood and realises that maybe he bit a little too hard.

“Is this a party you want to take elsewhere, or are you just hungry?” Dean asks, eyes closed, letting the sensation of Cas’s tongue at his neck ground him, block out all the other things fighting for space in his head.

“I’m debating as to whether you deserve a bed, or whether I’m just going to fuck you right here on the kitchen tiles.”

Dean whines, low in his throat and Cas laughs, a deep bass rumble.

“You have no idea how hot you sound right now,” Dean groans, “but my knees can’t take the kitchen floor.”

Cas lets go of his neck and looks at up him, one eyebrow raised.

“What makes you think I care? Maybe your knees deserve the kitchen floor.”

Dean groans again as a spark of arousal shoots through him. He’s half thinking, fuck his knees, they’ll be fine. He just wants Cas to push him to the floor, feed him his cock or manhandle him to all fours and just fucking ruin him. And from the dark look in Cas’s eyes, he reckons he’s thinking along the same lines.

And then Cas pulls back, smirks at the needy, hungry look on Dean’s face. He spends a moment just drinking him in – it’s been a while since he’s seen Dean like this, in a state that isn’t fucking furious, and he wants to savour it, drag it out and prolong it.

And then he crowds back in close, fits his hands over Dean’s ass and squeezes, draws him in for a kiss that’s all bite – sharp teeth and slight aggression. He lifts Dean up, abusing his angelic strength to hold him with no support from the wall or anything else. Dean wraps his legs around Cas’s torso with a moan. He loves being manhandled just as much as Cas loves doing it – but even when they were fucking regularly, they didn’t really do this. They were too concerned with wasting Cas’s finite batteries on something so frivolous, draining him dry just for an extra bit of spark.

They don’t have that problem anymore, and from the look currently in Cas’s eye, Dean can see that flagrant abuse of angel powers is going to feature quite heavily in their sex life for a long while to come. Dean is definitely not complaining.

Cas carries Dean to their room, kicks the door shut and slams him against it. After another aggressive kiss, he turns his focus to Dean’s neck, where he nips and bites. Dean leans his head back against the door, baring the skin of his throat to Cas’s ministrations, moaning as he strays from pleasure to almost pain and back again. He tries to thrust upwards, get some friction going against Cas’s chest, but Cas tightens his grip and holds him still, fingers pressing bruisingly into Dean’s ass.

Then Cas lets go with one hand, the show-off, and works his fingers down into the back of Dean’s waistband. He scrapes his nails on Dean’s ass, scratches his way slowly to his hole and then teases, fingers circling gently but never making a move to go in.

He keeps this up until Dean starts whining, low in his throat, and then Cas removes the offending hand, brings it up to Dean’s mouth and holds two fingers out. Dean doesn’t notice, eyes closed, wrapped up in sensation – the hand that’s still managing to massage his ass even while supporting his entire body weight, Cas’s hot breath over the little stings of pain that dot his neck.

“Dean.” Cas commands, and it is a command, a deep authoritative rumble that can’t be ignored.

Dean opens his eyes, sees the two fingers waiting by his lips and flushes red. He leans forwards and wraps his tongue around them, working them like he would a cock with a little groan.

Cas smirks. “Something else you’d like to be doing with that tongue?”

And now Dean’s torn. Cas is right, he wants to get his mouth around the cock he’s practically sitting on top of, thick and hard and nudging persistently against Dean’s ass even through his jeans. He wants to feel the weight of it on his tongue, swallow down the familiar fucking taste of Cas and suck him off until he’s a howling, writhing, screaming mess. But if he does that he’s not going to get the immediate pleasure of Cas’s skilled fingers in his ass – and fuck, does he want that.

Cas obligingly takes the decision away from him, drawing his fingers out of Dean’s mouth with a wet pop and diving back into his waistband. He works one spit slick finger inside Dean, starts to introduce a second and stops when Dean hisses at the burn.

“Where’s the lube?” Cas growls as he withdraws the offending finger, keeps going with the other one, circling Dean’s prostate but never actually touching it, teasing, torturing him.

It takes Dean a moment to gain the cognitive presence to reply.

“Uh – usual place.”

Cas grunts, withdraws from Dean entirely and makes a violent hand gesture in the direction of the bedside table. The drawer flies open and the contents scatter – lube arching into Cas’s hand.

Dean groans, rubs the palm of his hand over the bulge in his crotch – further turned on by Cas’s flagrant abuse of his angelic powers.

Cas looks at the lube thoughtfully for a moment, and then pockets it, turning his attention to Dean’s jeans with a smouldering look in his eye,

Uh-oh. Dean knows that look. That look doesn’t mean good things for his denim.

“Don’t rip—”

Cas clicks his fingers and banishes Dean’s clothes with a contemptuous snort.

Dean yelps at the sudden cold, and then again as Cas bites at his clavicle.

“I’m gonna put you down now.” He says into Dean’s collarbone.

Dean whines, disappointed, but unwraps his legs from around Cas and allows himself to be lowered to the ground.

Cas puts a hand on his shoulder and exerts a gentle downward pressure, and Dean lets himself be pushed to his knees, level with Cas’s crotch. There’s a supremely obviously bulge there as his cock strains to be free of his slacks, and Dean salivates a little at the sight of it.

He undoes the zip with his teeth, to a muffled laugh of approval from Cas. Dean pushes Cas’s slacks and briefs down halfway, too desperate to get at that cock to bother with undressing him properly. Anyway, it’s hotter like this, one of them completely naked, the other almost fully clothed. It doesn’t even matter which way round, as long as someone is naked and on their knees. Trust him, he’s experimented. For science.

Cas sighs, winds the fingers of both hands into Dean’s hair, and lets him go to town.

He starts off simple, tongue laving the sensitive head of Cas’s cock, running it up and down, hollowing his cheeks and getting just that right amount of suction, but then he deviates from the normal pattern.

He doesn’t often deepthroat people. Like, he gets how it’s good for the person sticking their cock down your throat, but from the other end, well, he’s never really seen the appeal. He doesn’t actively _hate_ doing it; don’t get him wrong, he just doesn’t really get anything out of it himself – not like all the other parts of going down on someone. The taste of them, getting deep in their clit or their ass or whatever, feeling the weight and the shape of a cock on his tongue and the bitter tang of precome to let him know he’s doing a good job. Deepthroating, well, it’s mostly just trying really hard to suppress his gag reflex while he does his best to get off on the happy noises his partner is making. Which, admittedly, he is very good at. Other people being happy makes him happy. Especially if that other person is Cas.

Which is why he takes a firm grip on Cas’s thighs to hold him steady, opens up his throat, and takes him in as far as possible. Cas groans as the head of his cock hits the back of Dean’s throat, feeling it flutter wildly around the length of him. And then Dean starts to hum. He knows exactly how good this feels, has had it done just the one time to himself – a time that was over frankly embarrassingly fast.

Cas’s grip in his hair goes white knuckled and he starts making abortive little twitching thrusts. Dean relaxes his grip, allows Cas to move just a little bit at first, and then rougher as he eases into it, gets used to it. He trusts Cas, knows there’s no way on earth he’d hurt him, even accidentally during sex.

Eventually Cas pulls out with a groan, gives his cock a few quick pumps at the debauched look Dean presents, on his knees, eyes glazed and mouth slack and open, a trail of spit hanging from his lips. Cas wants to come right now, pump his jizz all over Dean's face and fucking drink in the picture of beautiful hedonism, but he doesn’t. Instead he yanks Dean up to his feet, kisses the taste of himself out of Dean’s mouth.

He retrieves the lube bottle from his pocket, squirts it silently onto one hand without Dean noticing. He’s too distracted by Cas’s skilled mouth and tongue, working him over, biting at his lip and tugging, doing all the things he knows Dean loves and sending sparks coursing down to his poor, neglected cock.

Cas works his dry hand back into Dean’s hair, uses it to tug his head back and bare his neck. Cas scrapes his teeth lightly over it, plunges two fingers into Dean’s ass and bites down, hard.

Dean keens, thrusting forward abortively and then jerking backwards, trying to spear himself on Cas’s fingers, get them deeper, get them to finally touch his fucking prostate.

Cas opens him up quick and dirty – one hand exploring his ass, scissoring and stretching it open while the other stays twisted in his hair, holding his head back as he licks and sucks and bites.

Dean still hasn’t had either his prostate or his cock touched, and he’s writhing, begging.

“C- Cas – please...” he gasps out between desperate noises.

Cas takes a long few moments to consider, eventually decides that yes, wringing Dean out and teasing him is fun, but actually sticking his cock in him is usually even more fun.

He lets a finger brush fractionally over Dean’s prostate, laughs at the yelp it draws from him. Then he withdraws, leaves Dean empty and relaxes his grip in his hair.

Dean looks at him balefully, groans his disapproval. Cas grins, traces a finger over Dean’s cheekbone and then takes a firm grip on his thighs, lifts him up and lowers him steadily onto his cock. He waits until Dean is properly adjusted, squirming in his hands and trying to generate movement, and then he lunges forward with angelic speed, fucks up into Dean and slams his back against the door – hard enough to make sure he really feels it, but not quite hard enough to actually hurt him.

Cas is usually pretty rough when he takes the lead, all focussed intensity and carefully controlled power, but this is something else. He’s almost feral, thrusting up into Dean ferociously. Dean has no leverage of his own, speared on Cas’s cock and pounded against the door. He can’t even touch himself, the one time he tries, half-heartedly at best it must be said, Cas slaps his hand away with a grunt, returns his grip to Dean’s ass and squeezes bruisingly.

It’s part make-up sex, part I missed you sex, and part if you ever do that to me again I will break your fucking knees sex.

Cas’s thrusts build in ferocity and power, until Dean’s starting, in the moments of lucidity between curling sparks of bliss, to be worried for the structural integrity of both the door and his spine. But eventually Cas plateaus. He might seem out of control and wild right now, but he knows exactly what he’s doing, exactly how much force he’d need to use to actually hurt Dean, and he’s keeping rigidly just under it.

Dean can feel himself drawing close, cognisant moments between pure hedonistic joy getting briefer and briefer. Cas doesn’t look anywhere near as ruined, he still has his shirt on, pristine, although rolled up at the sleeves, because he's a bastard and even though he doesn't get hot or sweat or anything, he knows that slacks around ankles and rolled up white shirt is a hot fucking look. Dean might as well be bent over a fucking desk in some sort of slutty secretary fantasy.

Instead he’s stark naked and getting pounded against a door, covered in saliva and other bodily fluids, and possibly fucking sawdust.

“I’m close.” He groans at Cas.

Cas doesn’t make an indication that he’s head, carrying on pounding brutally. And then one of his hands relinquishes its grip, comes around and fists tight around Dean’s cock. He pumps it once, twice.

That’s all it takes. Dean comes explosively, bliss shooting through his veins.

His body locks up and he clenches around Cas, pulling him over the edge too. He comes hot and wet inside Dean, who groans at the sensation. They hang there, in afterglowed bliss for a long moment, and then Cas lifts Dean steadily off his cock and settles him down.

“If this is how we make up, man, we gotta fight more often.” Dean jokes, because he has no brain-mouth filter and enjoys making bad situations worse, apparently.

Cas scowls at him, but his disapproving expression is kind of ruined by the state of the pair of them.

Comes dribbles down the inside of Dean’s legs, is painted in a starburst pattern on Cas’s chest. Dean takes one look at the scene and laughs almost hysterically. Cas blinks at him for a few moments, clearly trying to decide if this is some sort of negative comment on his sexual prowess, and then a smile starts to tug at the edges of his mouth too, and soon they’re both fucking hysterical.

Cas mojos them both clean with a sweep of his hand, then kicks off his shoes and shirt and pants, stripping down entirely and lying down on the bed.

“Um, you know it’s like 2 in the afternoon, right?” Dean asks.

“I’m aware of the flow of time, yes. Now are you joining me, or not?”

“Duh.” Dean snorts, pads over settles himself in Cas’s arms.

Things aren’t back to how they were, not by a long shot, but you don’t make things up to people with one, sweeping, fix all gesture, Dean knows that, even if it doesn’t look like it sometimes. You make it up to them in fits and starts, little kind thoughts and reassurances. Meals cooked and promises kept and small, every day gestures. That’s what he’s gonna do here, with Cas. He’s going to work hard at winning him back, but not in big, apocalyptic gestures. He’s gonna teach him how to fix his car, how to—

“Dean.” Cas’s edgy tone snaps him out of his reverie. “When did you get a back tattoo?”

 

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is so late. We had no internet on thursday (or phone or TV for that matter, damn you virgin media) and I was busy all weekend.

Dean rolls over to face Cas, something in his eyes that looks a lot like worry and a little like resignation.

“Uh, since never? Do you have concussion? Sit up.”

“Angels don’t get concussion.” Cas says, far more patiently than he feels the situation warrants.

“Yeah, well you’ve got _something_.”

Dean isn’t even trying to mask the concern in his tone. Cas performs some made up ritual that knocks him out for a week, wakes up re-juiced, and suddenly everything is better than when he went to sleep.

Until he starts to hallucinate.

Sam’s words come back to him – when do we ever get anything good? Actually good, not just bad wearing a fucking mask.

“Dean.” Cas’s tone isn’t sharp, not unless you really know him – know what to look for. Dean could cut a feather on it. “Just come to the bathroom. Humour me.”

Dean stands warily, pulls on some boxers – because he’s had his lectures from Sam and what can he say, sometimes they stick, especially when there are threats that involve fork prongs and very sensitive areas. He waits as Cas mojos himself up some clothes, follows him out of the room and keeps a careful watch on him as he walks – looking for any sign of stumbling or lurching, any suggestion that he might be about to fall.

Cas makes it to the bathroom unscathed, waits patiently as Dean manoeuvres himself back to the mirror and turns to look.

Well. Shit.

“You think it’s connected to everything?” Dean asks, realises what a dumb question it is even before he’s got the second word out, but ploughs on regardless. Sometimes he just likes to see what Cas has to say about his latest moment of stupidity.

Cas’s reaction doesn’t disappoint.

“Do I think the mysterious tree shaped mark that has appeared on your back without either of us noticing, has some sort of connection to the nightmare forest that sucks you in and kills you on a regular basis?” Cas asks, because apparently he doesn’t think his _wow Dean it’s a good job you’re beautiful because clearly you’re a fucking moron_ face is putting across just how unimpressed he is.

“Is it tree shaped, I can’t really see?” Is Dean’s rather weak response.

Cas flicks his fingers in a very passive-aggressive fashion, materialises a camera in his hand and takes a photo. He hands it to Dean with a dark-eyed scowl.

There’s no mistaking the shape. A trunk follows the line of his backbone, the knobbles and bumps like whorls in the bark. Branches span out to the length of his broad shoulders, creeping towards his arms and neck – reaching out at his sides like they want to crawl over his ribs and envelop them too.

The roots are long and ragged, don’t reach out quite as far as the branches, just skim his lower back, ending at the waistband of his boxers.

Some of the branches have leaves, some don’t, bare and skeletal – like a warning. Cas can’t help but notice how the tree is lopsided – listing in one direction. Toward Dean’s right. Maybe coincidence, maybe something significant. What’s on Dean’s left that might repel it, what’s on Dean’s right that might attract it?

Whatever _it_ is.

“So. Um.” Dean begins. “This isn’t something you’ve seen before, right?”

“No.”

“Not in the whole of human history?”

“I wasn’t present for all of it.”

“Quite a lot of it though, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Cas?” He sounds tired, hesitant. “Should I be worried?”

“I think if it was going to kill you, it would have done so by now.”

That’s not an answer. Not to the question asked, anyway.

“Not what I meant, Ass-tiel.”

Yeah he said Ass-tiel. Shut up. He’s tired and wrung out and trying very hard not to fucking panic.

“There was a small mark on your back; I remember noticing it, like a splinter. I meant to ask you about it.”

“You think this started off as a splinter?”

“Or a seed.”

“Not helping the panic, thanks, Cas. Is this some sort of mind control thing – what happens when it reaches my brain, or my heart?”

“I don’t think it’s aiming for your heart.”

Cas connects dots. Not all of them, but enough.

“Cas?”

“Look.” Cas points at the left side of the screen. “It looks healthier on this side—”

“—Oh, great.” Dean interrupts, fear making him revert to dickishness.

“But it isn’t leaning towards that side. It’s going towards the right – even though the branches there are bare, gnarled and strange.”

“Okay.” Dean drawls out the word, thinking he might be catching on to what Cas means. “So whatever this is, there’s something on the right side of my body that it doesn’t like. Something that is weakening it, but that it’s also trying to get nearer to.”

“The something on the right sight of your body that can’t – or won’t – stop you getting to the forest. Something that revives you in a cloud of rage and sulphur every time you die, but that somehow, recently, doesn’t have the foothold to bring you back as anything other than human.”

“The Mark.”

“Has it been troubling you recently?”

“Uh. A little.”

“More or less than before?”

“Less, I think.”

“Even when you were so angry you ripped apart all of the cars in the bunker? When you—”

Dean cuts him off before he can list the litany of his sins.

“It was there, sort of. Like a low buzz.”

“And you didn’t think that was strange?”

“I was too busy being a royal fucking dick to everything in my path.”

Cas nods absently, takes Dean’s hand and stretches it out so that the Mark is in view. Dean has a habit of hiding his right arm when it’s bare, curling it into his body so that the Mark isn’t visible.

Cas presses his thumb against it, pulls a face.

“And?” Dean asks.

“It’s _furious._ ”

“No it’s not. It’s—”

Cas touches two of his fingers to Dean’s forehead, and the next thing all he knows is raging, screaming, boiling hatred. He lunges out at Cas, drives his fist into his face, grabs his hand and tries to snap it backwards. His failure in the face of Cas’s implacable angelic strength only drives him forwards faster, makes him snarl and snap his teeth together, lunge for Cas’s throat.

And then Cas lets go, and he’s back to himself again.

“What the fuck did you do that for?” Dean recoils, horrified, ashamed. Wondering where the fuck that all came from.

“That wasn’t me. That was you.”

“What?”

“That’s what the Mark is putting out right now. Except you can’t feel it. _I_ can feel it, but somehow you can’t – until I provide a bypass directly to your brain.”

“That’s what the Mark is doing?”

Dean struggles to reconcile what he’s being told with what he’s feeling. It can’t be right. This has got to be some trick or something.

“Whatever that thing is, it’s insulating you from the more everyday effects of the Mark of Cain. Which, as you can tell, the Mark isn’t happy about.”

“So this is a good thing?”

“It has a good side effect. Don’t mistake that for it being on your side.”

“Anything that tamps down the Mark is good by me.”

“And what happens if it subdues the Mark completely? Spears through it and negates all of the consequences the Mark brings – good or bad.”

“The Mark is evil, Cas, tell me you get that?”

 “Bad things, good consequences. Both the Mark on your arm that brings you back to life, and this _thing_ on your back that weakens the Mark but kills you on a regular basis in return. Neither are good. They’re in symbiosis for now. How long until one becomes stronger than the other – how long until you die in your dreams and there is nothing to pull you back?”

 “Yeah, but—”

“I have watched you die more times than I care to measure, heard your heart cease to beat to a breeze that smells like pine needles. And then I have counted, each time, waited for you to come spluttering back to life, reeking of hell and full of rage for a short while before you are yourself again and everything is fine.”

Dean groans. He’s a terrible fucking person and he’s putting Cas through shit situation after shit situation.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” He says, lamely.

Cas shrugs.

“It wasn’t your fault – most of the time.”

“Not that I ended up there, maybe, but I could’ve been more careful, tried not to get killed.”

Cas shrugs. “I don’t think that would have made a difference.”

“You still shouldn’t have had to watch that.”

“I’ve watched a lot of things happen that I didn’t want to – some of them I even caused myself.”

“Yeah well, not anymore. If I can help it, anyway.”

“Thank you.”

“You shouldn’t have to thank me, Cas. I should have fucking figured it out on my own that this wouldn’t be fun for you.”

God, he can be shitty sometimes.

“You had other problems.” Cas points out, entirely too understandingly. “Between the Mark and the forest itself. I’ll forgive you for being distracted this time.”

Cas can see the patented Dean Winchester slide into self-hatred and self-flagellation trying to happen.

“Stop.”

“What?”

“You fucked up. You know that, I know that. But punishing yourself in some arbitrary way – again – isn’t going to make it better. I forgive you, on the condition that you forgive yourself.”

“Cas—”

“You punishing yourself helps nothing and just upsets us both.”

Blunt, but to the point. It’s the only way he thinks he’ll ever get through to Dean what he’s trying to say.

Dean stalls, doesn’t know how to react. He’s stuck in a sort of feedback loop; I’ve fucked up so I need to be punished for it in some way, by myself or the universe – but doing that hurts Cas, which is what I fucked up by doing in the first place.

Cas sighs. Things could have been so simple if he’d just have stuck to celibacy and intimate friendships. But no, it was Dean Winchester he fell for – in all the possible meanings of that word – the human embodiment of issues.

“This isn’t going to work if your reaction to me telling you I’m upset is just to punch yourself in the face and hope I don’t mind you bleeding all over me. I know it’s your tried and tested method, but it doesn’t actually help either of us. What does help, is you _listening to me_ and trying to avoid doing things, like this, which upset me.”

“Okay.”

“Now I believe we were having a conversation about the almost definitely evil tree on your back, before you side-tracked it with a chick-flick moment.”

“I did not—”

“Concede the point or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Unspecified future revenge achieved through gratuitous abuse of angel powers.”

“I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

Cas smirks very briefly, and then he puts his Serious Face™ back on.

“Something as powerful as this must be, I should have been able to feel it radiating off you.”

“But you can’t?”

“Not at the moment, and not when I was touching you – not even when I was inside you.”

“Well, I kinda hope you were a little distracted when you were boning me.”

“Your sexual prowess is legendary but that wasn’t the point I was attempting to make.”

“You should have been able to feel something when you were touching me?”

“Yes.”

“Have you tried, um, touching _it._ ”

“That’s what I was about to ask permission for.”

“Knock yourself out - not literally, once was enough on the coma front.”

Cas ignores his remark, trails his finger up and down Dean’s back, starts at the roots and treads over every single branch and leaf. The surface feels pitted and rough, like bark. Even the leaves.

There’s no feeling, though. No hint or trace to tell him where it came from.

He tries again, notices the little dark patch where the trunk meets the roots. It’s the same splinter he noticed, the first time he and Dean slept together. Huh. Figures he should start there. He holds two fingers over it and concentrates.

He feels _something_. Nothing specific, but something.

A start.

He sends an experimental twist of grace out, feels it dissipate into the flesh without any effect.

“Did you feel that?”

“No.”

“Hmm.”

“So, recognise it?”

“Sort of. It’s null magic.”

“Null magic?”

“Whatever this is, it’s putting out a dampener of sorts.”

“So that’s why the Mark’s doing jackshit?”

“I imagine so, yes.”

“Which means?”

“There’s so much anti-magic running through your flesh you’re practically a vacuum.”

“Nice to know.”

“Whatever this thing is, it doesn’t want competition.”

“No shit.”

Cas smacks him lightly across the shoulder.

“So does angel mojo not work on me now?” Dean interrupts what he’s sure is about to be a telling off.

“No, it would, just not the quantity I used.”

“Prove it.” Dean grins back at him. Inappropriately good cheer or desperate coping mechanism though forced jollity. Even he has trouble telling sometimes.

Cas sighs, send an electric spark of grace into Dean’s lower back.

He yelps, tries to slap Cas’s hand away. Cas allows him to, so he doesn’t hurt his feelings.

He half expects the tree to shrivel away from it, but it stays, still and static.

“I’m not going to find anything else out like this.” Cas says.

“I take it from your tone, you think you’re going to find something another way, and that I’m not going to enjoy it.”

“I’m going to join you, in your dreams.”

“You’re going to what?”

“I’m going to join you, the next time you dream.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Um, because it’s stupidly dangerous, we don’t know what’s going on? When I die in there I get revived. What happens to you? Assuming you fucking make it there in the first place.”

“I’m doing this, Dean.”

“No. You’re not.”

“And the alternative? We just sit here, wait until it smothers the Mark and you die for good?”

“Better than _you_ dying for good.”

“Don’t you dare.” Cas snaps.

Dean hauls in a few deep breaths, stops himself.

“Look, I didn’t mean it like that, I don’t wanna die. Of course not – but I’m not letting you risk your safety just because there’s a chance you _might_ work out what this bullshit is.”

“You can’t let me do anything. I decide the risks I am prepared to take.”

“And look how that worked out last time!”

“With my grace stabilised. I call that a result.”

“You were in a coma for a week – you said yourself, it was a million to one chance that happened.”

“But it did.”

“And if this does the opposite?”

“It’s still my choice to make.”

The problem is, Dean knows Cas is right. Cas’s life is his own to gamble with as he sees fit. But that doesn’t mean Dean isn’t allowed to vocalise his opinion, very fucking angrily. Tell him he’s being a dumbass.

“I get that, I do. Free will – the whole nine. I still don’t want you to do it.”

“I know.”

“Let me guess, I’m not going to be able to stop you, am I?”

“I’d rather do it with your permission.”

“But you’ll do it without my consent if you have to.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I would respect your wishes as far as I am able. I would likely eventually snap and do it against your will, because I think it is the only option, and I don’t want to watch you die – for good this time – of stubbornness.”

Deans scrapes his hand through his hair. Cas has to make everything fucking difficult, and so incredibly fucking simple that you can’t refuse him, at the same time.

“Sam is in the room with a kick, something to wake you up if he even thinks things are going badly. You fucking twitch, and this stops.”

“I am amenable to those terms.”

“Glad one of us is.”

“Dean—”

“Look, I said yes, okay. You can do it.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (PS: if one of you wants to draw me a picture of Dean's back tattoo - or anything else from this story actually that'd be super cool - I will a) be eternally grateful b) write something based on a prompt of your choice (not Wincest sorry it's just not my thing) at some point in the future when things are calmer and less DCBB oriented and c) definitely 100% put it up here for everyone to appreciate (unless you don't want me to in which case I will just treasure it privately forever))


	19. Chapter 19

Dean refuses to talk about it further, because he’s mature like that. Instead he announces that he’s going back to bed, with a meaningful look at Cas that says he expects to be joined there or else.

“It’s three—”

“In the afternoon, yeah, you said that. And what, time is a construct and I haven’t been sleeping well” or at all “recently. I want a nap.”

“And if you dream during this nap?”

“I won’t.”

“Dean—”

“Can I just get one night, or afternoon or whatever, to enjoy having you back?” He says, exiting the bathroom, making sure that Cas is following him before he carries on. “One night before you start doing dangerous and potentially life endangering things.”

Cas squints at him, assesses Dean’s tone.

“You mean you want to cuddle naked for a few hours and we can’t do that if Sam is in the room.”

“No!” Dean splutters, with the most unconvincing and sheepish look on his face that Cas has ever seen.

Cas snorts, follows him back into the room and mojos off both his own clothes and Dean’s boxers.

“You are the laziest person, interdimensional wavelength, whatever, that I have ever met.”

“Says the person who wants to sleep in the middle of the day.”

“Yeah, well, not all of us have magic angel juice, some of us have to refresh the normal way.”

It’s nice, almost back to normal, half-hearted bickering and gently teasing. There’s still a small undercurrent of, not awkwardness, but tension perhaps. Hopefully something that’ll fade with time.

They settle back into the bed together. Cas tries to manoeuvre Dean so that he’s lying with his back against Cas’s chest, the tattoo hidden between them, but Dean refuses, fidgets and wriggles around until they’re facing each other – Cas’s nose pressed against his neck.

“You know it isn’t technically possible to burrow under my skin.” Cas mumbles into Dean’s collarbone as he tries to shuffle even closer.

“Quitting’s for losers.” Dean informs him, grandly.

Cas snorts, but doesn’t protest as Dean rearranges them into what apparently passes for a comfortable position.

Dean’s tired – it’s been a stressful few weeks, even if that was largely of his own making, but he tries to stay awake anyway. He wants to savour this moment, just lie here tangled up in Cas, listening to the sound of his breathing and his heart beating, two things he’s pretty sure Cas doesn’t need to do to survive, but he does anyway.

Cas watches Dean struggle to stay awake, gently amused, and counts the minutes until he loses his fight.

He spends the night watching Dean sleep – the flutter of his eyelashes, the slight frown in reaction to whatever he’s dreaming about. He listens to his heartbeat, the slow raspy breaths that graduate into rattling snores as he rolls onto his back.

He watches Dean sleep – even though there are other things he could be doing, even though he’s been told multiple times that it’s creepy – because he feels like this might, to butcher an old cliché, indeed be the calm before – or the calm between – storms, and he’s going to enjoy it in whatever way he sees fit, thank you.

 

*

 

Dean sleeps through the night and then some. And it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the almost restored angel sleeping beside him and using his powers for good. Nothing.

As the ass-crack of midday draws near, Cas debates untangling himself from what feels like all seventeen of Dean’s arms and making him breakfast in bed.

And then he remembers that he’s not the one in the doghouse, and if anyone is getting breakfast in bed, really, it should be him. Never mind that he doesn’t eat breakfast, or any other meal, it’s the thought that counts.

And anyway, if he lets go of Dean’s he’s going to wake up, and he’ll do it alone, remember that he and Cas have been fighting and, if the previous indication is anything to go by, likely panic and/or do something stupid.

It’s at that precise moment that Dean mumbles into the pillow.

“I’d make you breakfast in bed, but you don’t sleep or eat, so I’m not sure you’d really appreciate it.”

“Not good enough.” Cas informs him.

“Angels are so hard to buy for. What can I do for you that you can’t mojo up yourself.”

“Use your imagination.”

Dean laughs into his arm, eyes still closed.

“I’m trying to decide which you’d enjoy more – the severed head of a demon, or maybe a nice book of exorcisms.”

Actually, he knows exactly what he’s going to get Cas as a token make up present. A mix tape, or CD, or memory stick, or whatever the fuck they’re calling it these days. Playlist, his brain finally supplies the right word. Playlist, you idiot.

“Severed head sounds quite messy.” Cas notes, as if he couldn’t just mojo it clean with a thought.

“Hard to store too – it couldn’t stay in here, I’d feel it looking at me every time we had sex.”

“I have a perfect memory and now I’m going to have to live with that image forever, so thank you, Dean.”

“My pleasure.”

He grins up at Cas.

“So, breakfast?”

“I don’t—”

“I know, but I do, and then when that’s done there’s something I want to show you how to do.”

Cas rolls his eyes, pretends to sigh a long suffering sigh, but of course he goes with Dean.

 

*

 

Dean collapses into bed at the end of the day, tired, sweaty, and covered in not a small amount of engine grease. Once he’d explained to Cas that yes, I know you could just zap the car fixed but that really isn’t the point you idiot, he’d been surprisingly eager to learn. And that hideous car of his has never looked better.

As per their agreement, Cas waits until he falls asleep to go get Sam. Falling asleep knowing what Cas will be doing if he starts to dream is hard enough, doing it while Sam is sitting in the corner reading a book and somehow managing to make more noise than a motorbike on a gravel track with a fucking boom box strapped to the back, is another challenge entirely.

 

*

 

“So, let’s just go over this again.”

“For the eighth time.”

“I’m just trying to make sure this is clear in my head.”

“And you have a point to make, I assume.”

“So there’s a malignant entity in Dean’s back, one that is strong enough to subdue the Mark of Cain, and you think it is a good idea to enter the dreams it creates so you can see what it is?”

“When you put it like that….”

“And Dean is _letting_ you do this?”

“Dean doesn’t get to control me.”

“I literally don’t understand how you got him to agree to this.”

“I think he feels guilty.”

“Guilty? Cas, if he feels guilty now, how much guiltier is he going to feel if you get hurt, if this thing kills you?”

“I may have told him I’d do it anyway eventually, without his consent, rather than watch him die.”

“Oh my god.” Sam literally throws his hand up in the air. “You two deserve each other. You know that?”

“He thinks it’s safer that I do it sooner, and with your supervision, than we wait until I snap and do it without any control.”

Sam doesn’t have any words. Well, he does, he just appears to have short circuited the part of his brain that gets them from his mind to his vocal chords.

Cas frowns at him.

“If you’re not comfortable—”

“Not comfortable? No, I’m not fucking comfortable, but much like Dean, I would rather not let you do this on your own.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. How will I even know when to pull you out?”

“You might not.”

“Oh my god.”

Cas slips his angel blade out from wherever it lives when he isn’t actively thinking about it – and one day Sam will remember to ask, but that day is not today. Today he is too busy wondering exactly what the fuck Cas is about to do and should he be running?

“Praying might not work. If it doesn’t, a shallow wound with this should be enough to bring be back.”

“I take it Dean doesn’t know about this.”

Cas’s look is all the answer he needs.

When this is over Sam is going on a holiday, a long one, one where he changes his name and gets plastic surgery and never ever has to deal with either of these two and their for-the-best-of-intentions-but-still-dysfunctional-lying-asses ever again.

“If this goes wrong—”

“It won’t.”

Sam literally snorts with laughter. Literally.

 

*

 

_He feels the dirt beneath his fingers before he even opens his eyes, debates staying on the ground for a bit. It’s not quite as comfy as his bed, but it’s a damn sight better than being on his feet._

_But no, if he stays here something is going to stumble across him and eat him, and he promised Cas he wouldn’t let that happen again – to the best of his ability, anyway._

_Speaking of Cas…_

_He cracks open an eye. No sign of him. Okay, but that doesn’t mean anything. Cas might not even know he’s dreaming yet. He tries not to think about how awfully luckily convenient it is that the first night of their attempts  to smuggle Cas into the forest, and here he is, dreaming about it even though he hasn’t for over a week._

_He pushes himself to his feet, is pleasantly surprised to see that he’s uninjured. That’s a good sign, probably. It can’t be a bad one, at least._

_He spins around, tries to pinpoint the direction the howls are coming from this time, but has no luck. They’re in stereo, no stronger one way than another._

_He looks around, sees if there are any weapons lying around that he can defend himself with. Nothing much. A rock over there, which isn’t much use unless it’s been blessed by a Tibetan monk, or hides a core of silver or iron or something. But._

_He grabs the rock, because hey, if he can’t kill anything coming after him, he can always give it concussion, and tries to decide which way to go. None of them look particularly appealing. Suspicious dark bit of woodland to the east, suspicious dark bit of woodland to the west, suspicious dark bit of woodland to the south, cave of almost certain death to the north._

_He decides to go west for a bit, humming to himself as he does. He doesn’t like the Petshop Boys, but in his not very old age thank you shut the fuck up Sam, he’s picked up a habit of getting situationally appropriate songs stuck in his head. And yeah, humming isn’t exactly the most stealthy thing he could be doing right now, but neither is walking, and anyway, he doesn’t think the monsters in his dreams find him by such mundane means as hearing where he is. It’s gotta be some sort of psychic voodoo crap. That or the massive fucking tree on his back is broadcasting his location to every clawed and fanged beast in a 500-metre radius._

_That’s a thought._

_He pulls off his shirt, does some very complicated manoeuvring and twisting – it’s a good job he is mildly flexible – to try and see his back. I mean, he can’t get a clear view, but he can see something, black and smudged. Makes sense. He still has the Mark here, he’d still have the thing that, they think, brings him here._

 

*

 

Cas waits until he sees the familiar signs that Dean’s nightmare isn’t a typical one, can’t resist the temptation to sneak a peek around at his back.

The leaves on the tree are swaying. Not much, fractionally, almost immeasurably, but enough for him to notice. Sam spots him looking, comes around.

“You and Dean have been banging like teenagers for months. How the hell did you not notice that?”

Sam asks, because yes, thanks, that’s what Cas needs right now. His own guilt added to.

“I did, when it was smaller. I thought it was a splinter.”

“And when it turned into a tree?”

“He likes to wear t-shirts in bed.”

“He never struck me as the self-conscious type.”

“He’s not. He gets cold.”

Sam has to concede that. The bunker is fucking freezing. Brilliant water pressure, shame the magic doesn’t extend to the radiators.

“Now, are you done criticising me for being unobservant?”

Sam holds up his hands in mock surrender, twirls the angel blade nervously between his fingers.

Cas kneels by the edge of the bed, takes Dean’s face in his hands. He doesn’t need physical contact to dreamwalk, but he does it anyway. He finds Dean’s touch grounding, pleasant.

He gathers himself, steels his mental defences, and dives into Dean’s dream.

 

*

 

_He hears the sound of angel wings and looks around, confused. No sign of Cas, who can’t fly anyway, but he supposes this is a dream, even if its effects can be physical, and Cas is an angel. He has the power to manipulate dreams, maybe that’s what he’s doing here._

_He feels a dull, persistent pain in the centre of his forehead. A headache. Great._

_He climbs up into a tree – out of sight hopefully – and leans against the trunk to sit it out._

_*_

It’s like trying to fight his way through a thorn bush, the harder he pushes, the more it hurts. It doesn’t even seem to end, either. The further in he tunnels, the thicker and darker it gets. There’s no sign of light, or life. No sign of anything that isn’t darkness and thorns.

He keeps going until he’s cut to ribbons, his hands and face. His trenchcoat is torn and no matter how hard he tries to heal any of it, it doesn’t work. His blood is leaking and dribbling, pooling on sharp twigs.

_Cas. You need to stop._

He hears Sam’s prayer, but he can’t stop now, he must be close. And it’s not a compulsion if it’s not his true name. He just needs a few more minutes.

_CASTIEL! COME BACK!_

Fuck. He resists, keeps trying to claw his way forward, inch by inch. He can see something bright, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

Or the glint of a fresh drop of blood.

His own.

He’s going around in circles. Metaphorical circles, dream circles. Circles around Dean’s head.

He feels the searing sting of an angel blade score along his thigh.

He lets go, opens his eyes.

Sam is standing over him, concerned and maybe a little worried too.

“I take it that didn’t work.”

“No. It didn’t.”

“Shit.”

 

*

 

_The headache persists for four hours, and for four hours, Dean waits. He doesn’t see a single monster in the woods below, but he’s not stupid. Maybe they’re hiding, maybe the moment he drops down from this tree that’s it, pile on._

_He can’t get killed here, not again. He can’t do that to Cas._

_So he waits._

_Four hours turn into five. Five turn into six. He feels his eyes drooping and he fights to stay awake. Asleep is vulnerable._

_Asleep is also how he gets here, he realises, fucking berates himself for not thinking it before. Maybe it’s how he escapes._

_He closes his eyes, counts his breaths. In-one-two-three out-one-two-three in-one-two-three out-one-two-three._

_It’s not working. Like everyone who has ever tried to force themselves to sleep, he finds it almost impossible. The more he tries the more awake he feels. Itches run up and down his limbs, his legs keep trying to twitch._

_He gives up, opens his eyes._

_He sees blue, a concerned frown._

He’s awake.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, fair warning, we're coming into the last stretches of the DCBB now, and I'm also applying for a job, so there is a good chance the next few updates will be late or I might miss a week or two. Obviously I will do my best to keep getting this out on time, but I can't promise anything so be prepared. xoxox


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOOD NEWS: Your chapter of Methadone is a whole THREE DAYS EARLY YAAY LUCKY FOR YOU GUYS WOO
> 
> (bad news: there probably won’t be another update until like the 20th of August because AHHHHH applying for job AHHHHH DCBB AHHHHHH general panic)
> 
> Don’t think of it as a month with no update, think of it as a month to pause to gather yourself and get ready for OH MY GOD THE BIG REVEAL)

It only takes him a few seconds to realise that something is wrong. Cas’s face is sheened with sweat, which doesn’t even happen after their most – ahem – vigorous of activities, and Sam has a look that could at best be described as glazed, and at worst be someone who is about to check out of the next few hours entirely.

“What?” He croaks, sitting up, but not standing because woah, headrush. He blinks the forceful, exaggerated blinks of someone trying to wake up from thick, cloying sleep and tries again. “Bad news?”

“A setback.” Cas says.

Sam snorts, shifts something awkwardly behind his back. Dean knows that movement. It’s his subconscious _someone told me to hide this and I don’t agree that I should but I will do it because what the fuck do I know I’m only Sam ‘brains of the family’ Winchester?_ movement.

Basically it’s Sam doing what he’s told, but doing a super shitty job of it, because compromise. He doesn’t even realise he’s doing it – sneaky little bastard.

Dean’s not just bitter because he's usually the one Sam is subconsciously selling out, honest.

Dean pats the bed to encourage Cas to sit down, because peaky isn’t the word for what he looks right now. In danger of collapse comes close, but that’s a phrase. Wobbly. That’s the word. Okay, wow, this focused, one track mind thing is suddenly very hard.

Cas sits, doesn’t even protest or make a comment about how angels don’t need rest. So that’s a Bad Sign. But he can see to that in a minute, right now Dean has other, Sam shaped concerns.

“What’s Sam trying very ineffectively to hide?” He goes for blunt. Bluntlittleinstr— okay, wow. No. It’s been a long time since that. He’s not, it’s not. No.

What the fuck is going on with his head, why can’t he hold a coherent fucking thought for more than three seconds? Maybe he needs to cut down on the drinking, he’s clearly running out of unpickled brain cells.

Two voices pipe up. Same word, same guilty tone.

“Nothing!”

But Sam’s arm jiggles again. God, this guy played at poker with people’s lives as the stake. How the hell did he manage to win that one?

Dean shrugs, like okay, whatever, I’ve just woken up gimme a bit of leeway here – and then he lunges forward and darts both his hands behind Sam’s back, like he’s giving him the world’s most sudden attack hug.

Surprise is on his side, because Sam is an idiot, or really fucking distracted by something, and Dean grabs the offending, and pretty sharp, item out of Sam’s hand.

He recognises it by touch alone – there’s a unique sense of Cas-ness that radiates off his angel blade. Don’t ask Dean to explain it, because he doesn’t fucking understand it either, but it’s there, enough for anyone who knows him well enough to recognise his stamp instantly.

And if anyone knows Cas, it’s Dean.

Dean flops back to seating position with the weapon in hand, does a double take – almost too quick to notice. He thought he saw something, just a vague hint in his peripheral vision. He blinks a few times and it’s gone, so he returns his focus to the matter at hand.

“Why were you holding Cas’s angel blade?”

“It’s not Cas’s.” Sam tries.

“It fucking is.” Dean scoffs.

He frowns at the brief prickle of sensation beginning to form behind his left eye. The first hint of an oncoming cluster headache, but he hasn’t had one of those in years. Not since he got pulled out of hell – thank you Cas.

Whatever, it’s probably just the fucking stress.

Dean inspects the blade, notices the hastily wiped smear of blood on it, and oh _hell no._

There’s an honest to god audible gulp as the offending parties – because Dean has no doubt Cas had several somethings to do with this – notice where his attention is directed.

“Something either of you want to tell me about?”

Cas is the first to cave.

“It was just insurance.”

“Insurance.” Dean repeats, with a little pensive nod of his head. The sort that both Cas and Sam know mean sharp things are shortly going to be flying mainly in their direction.

“In case I got lost too deep in your head.”

“Uh-huh.”

Dean draws his knees up so he’s sitting cross-legged, taps the blade against his leg and then drops it into his lap. His hands curls themselves into fists, nails dug tight. Anything to stop him reaching over and punching Cas square in the face – oh, it wouldn’t hurt him, of course, but it’d feel so fucking satisfying.

He restrains himself though, because he knows where that road ends up, and he’s been so good at keeping himself leashed since the incident.

There it is again. Like a little static crackle at the edge of his vision. He rubs his eyes and it goes away. Maybe it’s time to look into getting glasses. Doesn’t mean he’s old, just means it probably runs in the family or some shit. Anyway, he’s spent a lot of time bent over old books in bad lighting, a lot more time squinting into dark, dangerous spaces. He probably has some of the most stressed eyes this side of the western hemisphere.

He pushes that thought away, because that’s a problem for later, rolls his shoulders and pins Cas in his most penetrating glare.

“Did you lie to me about how dangerous this was?”

“No.” Cas replies, resolute, certain.

“But you still thought that there was a chance something would happen, something bad enough that Sam would have to stab you to get you out?”

“Make a shallow graze.” Sam supplies.

“Of course.” Dean nods. “Silly me. That makes it okay.”

“I didn’t think it would go that far.” Cas says. “I gave him the blade at the last moment, insurance against something I was certain wouldn’t happen.”

“If you were certain—”

“I was doing what I knew you’d want me to do – take all precautions short of not doing anything at all.”

“If you expect me to be grateful—”

“I don’t, and I’m sorry, but no harm was done.”

“Luckily.”

“Next time I’ll be prepared, fully.”

Dean snaps his head in a rough, aggressively disapproving gesture - regrets it instantly as the promise behind his eye flares into actual pain before dissipating quickly. There’s another burst of movement, just out of sight enough that he can’t pin it, just in enough that he’s sure it happened. No reaction from Sam and Cas, but they're facing away from the door, they probably wouldn't notice until it was too late...

“There is not going to be a next time.”

“But we still don’t know—”

“Doesn’t matter, not now.”

“Why not?” Sam cuts in to ask.

“Didn’t either of you notice something a little, I don’t know, odd about how I woke up this time? Like uh, how I didn’t _die??_ ”

Sam and Cas exchange a glance. It’s not that they didn’t notice, per-se, it’s just that somehow it hadn’t had time to register in the literal seconds between Sam pulling Cas out of whatever fucked up headspace he’d sunk into, and Dean waking blearily up.

They hadn’t had enough time to process before he started handing out the stern stares and snatching very dangerous very pointy items out of people’s hands.

Dean looks at the pair of dopey, blinking cow-eyes staring back at him and sighs. Clearly it’s been a stressful – however the fuck long he was out.

“I didn’t die. Not in the dream, not out here either, right?”

“Right.” Cas clarifies.

“Which proves it can be done.”

Cas can see where this is going.

“Dean,”

“Which means you don’t have to do any more dangerous poking around in my head.”

The pain flares back up behind his left eye and he winces, waits for it to fade away like last time. It doesn’t, hangs there, jagged and hideous. It’s been fucking years and he’d forgotten how painful cluster headaches tend to be.

“How _did_ you survive, Dean?” Cas asks.

He grits his teeth, rubs at his eye – even though he knows neither pressure nor darkness actually help, he’s never been able to resist the urge to try in case something has magically changed.

He’ll just answer these questions, dose himself up to the hilt with ibuprofen and then sit very still and hope it all fucking goes away.

“I climbed up a tree and hid.”

“That’s all?” Cas sounds sceptical.

“You said you wanted me to survive this shit, so I hid, happy?”

“Yeah, but,” Sam adds, “up a tree? Really? That’s all it took? No sigils, no weapons?”

“Okay, when you put it like that…” Dean allows.

“Can you talk me through everything that happened, from when you woke up there to when you woke up back here?” Cas asks, with the patience of a saint – one of the lesser, more irritable ones. Patience is _a_ virtue, but it is not the only one, and frankly, it’s been a long time since Cas considered himself virtuous anyway.

“Okay. Woke up, looked around a bit, picked up a rock, um, ran around for a while, and then – I heard, like wings? That noise your lot used to make when they zapped places. Then I got a fuckass of a headache, climbed up into a tree to play it safe and just sat there until I started falling asleep. Tried to keep myself awake at first, then I realised I was being a fucking moron, and that sleep was how I got here, it’s probably how I get out too. So, head against the trunk, eyes shut, tadaa woke up here.”

He nearly does the jazz hands, senses that maybe that’s not the mood this conversation is suddenly taking. And also, when the fuck did it magically switch from his dishing out the bollocking, to him being on the receiving end of judgemental glares? That doesn't seem right. Or fair.

Not that he’s complaining too hard, Cas is sexy when he’s angry.

And hello, not the time.

He needs a coffee, or a fucking Adderall, just something to reign in those goddamn errant thoughts and let him focus.

“But look, that’s an answer, isn’t it? I just find somewhere safe to bed down, or maybe knock myself out, and then I’m back here, jobs-a-goodun, Mark is being fought down, I don’t die, win-win.”

“And you don’t think it’s strange that no monsters showed up this time?”

“Okay, yeah, maybe, but still. They didn’t.”

“I’m not sure of much about that forest, Dean, but I’m certain the reason that something big and bad and hideous always finds you, is because that thing on your back creates them exactly for that purpose.”

“I did wonder, when I was there, if it was luring stuff towards me, like a beacon?”

Cas pulls a face, considering, but disagreeing. Dean knows it well.

“You're thinking of this forest as a tangible place, somewhere your physical body goes.”

“Yeah, ‘cause it kinda is. Feels real, I wake up with fresh wounds…”

“I don’t know how it achieves that, but trust me, your body doesn’t go anywhere. And anyway, that’s not the point, the point is that you’re thinking of this as a place which that _thing_ ” and they are going to have to give it a name at some point, “takes you to, a place which you can control and change and affect. When actually, it’s not. It’s a place that tree has created, a place that it has trapped you in and a place where it decides what happens, and what it wants to happen most seems to be your death.”

 “You think it _wants_ to kill me? That’s not just a side effect?”

That’s definitely movement he can see. Just outside the door, in his peripherals, half out of sight. He needs to catch it, tilt his head to just the right angle—

“Yes. I think every time you die in the forest, it grows. I can’t prove it, but I’d stake my remaining grace on it.”

“Okay, well, obviously that’s not great, but if that’s the case, why didn’t it dob me in to the fucking dream monster population this time?”

“It was too busy fighting me off.”

“Oh?”

“There was a barrier around your dream, if I had to describe it I’d say thorns—” and Dean snorts, because come on, he’s over the whole evil nature crap now. What about a nice brick wall? “— a maze of thorns, growing and twisting back on itself and leading me away.”

“Okay, well, that’s not great.”

“It has a possible positive side effect.” Cas begins, but Dean knows where he’s going, heads him off.

“No. You’re never doing that again, I don’t care if Sam is around with your blade to dig you out.”

“I wasn’t even hurt.”

“You might have been and we’re not fucking having this fight, Cas, okay.” He sighs, rubs the heel of his palm over his left eye. “Can we continue this conversation later, yeah? Maybe after I’ve had a coffee or an ibuprofen or something? My head is seventeen shades of pounding the shit outta me.” _And I think there’s something listening to us…._

Cas’s frown reaches peak _what the shit did you just say?_

“You have a headache?”

“That’s what I meant when I strongly implied that my head hurt, yes, well done.”

“Since when?”

“Umm. It started building a little after I woke up.”

“And you didn’t think to mention it?”

“No. I get – got – headaches all the time.”

“Got?” Sam asks. He hasn’t heard Dean moan about his headaches for a long time, but he just figured he had bigger things to worry about, impending apocalypses do put that sort of shit in perspective.

“They stopped after Cas y’know, reassembled me. I got off light it being this long, used to be every few months.”

“Your cluster headaches? I fixed those. They’ll never come back.” Cas frowns.

“Yeah well, you didn’t do it too well, Dr Dolittle.”

Sam looks at him in askance.

“Because he didn’t do much because it didn’t work. Shut up, I’m not on my best game here, crippling head pain y’know.”

“Dean, you’ll never have another cluster headache again.”

Cas says, slowly, like he’s patiently explaining to a toddler that no, kid, food is for eating, not for throwing.

“Oh.” And Dean gets it now.

So, not a cluster headache, something else. Something invariably bigger, and badder and more sinister. Because fuck them, fuck their luck, and fuck the stupid fucking horse it rode in on.

“Dean? DEAN!” Cas’s yell finally gets his attention. Ah, shit.

“What?”

“I said, anything else unusual?”

“Um, I, uh, I feel kinda dizzy? And I’m having trouble focussing, maybe. My mind is like wandering a—”

He doesn’t finish that thought. The flicker he thought he kept seeing, the shadow beyond the door, it’s there, it’s there and he can see a shape – a body, large, four legged. He snatches up Cas’s angel blade, hisses under his breath, doesn’t want to let it know that he knows it’s there.

“Get back! There’s something there, by the door!”

“Dean?” Cas sounds worried.

“Outside the door, in the shadows.”

“Shit.”

Sam draws Ruby’s knife from his belt, pads softly forward and scans the entrance.

“I can’t see anything.” He says, without turning around.

“It’s there.” Dean throws back. “I can fucking see it.”

“Dean, there’s nothing.”

“Sam, get _back._ ”

 “There’s nothing fucking _there_!” Sam yells, whirls around.

And his eyes are red and patches of skin are missing from his face, jagged canines poking through ripped and raw flesh. Blood drips from his lips and his teeth, and he’s laughing, tongue lolling out of his mouth and it’s not Sam and Dean whirls to face Cas and there’s black goo dripping and dribbling from his eyes and out of his nose and he rolls his head in that old familiar way – familiar because it only happened once in real life but it happened every day for years in his nightmares – _Cas is umm...he's gone, he's dead – we  run the show now_ and his jaw unhinges and there’s teeth and teeth and so many fucking teeth and he can’t be, they can’t be, this isn’t happening.

Dean grabs the angel blade and lunges forward, aims for Sam’s heart.

 

*

 

 

Cas sees the glazed eyed panic of Dean’s expression, the way he’s shaking as he looks at Sam, and then to Cas himself. And he’s good, and he knows Dean, and he’s ready. Dean lunges forward, and Cas meets him, rolls him off the bed, dodges a lunge with one of the few weapons that would kill him. He goes for Dean's head, doesn’t waste time like he usually would when mojoing Dean, no tender touch, no gentle cradling of the face. Just two fingers slammed against his forehead,

and Dean is struggling...

kicking...

writhing...

out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I nearly didn't include that last paragraph, I came so close. And then I thought no, too many hideous cliffhangers. I'll give them this, at least.


	21. Chapter 21

At the centre of his web, Crowley sits, among strands of smoke and bone, sinew and tendon. He is betrayed, forgotten. Triumphant. He sends out an order, and a velvet-red tendril vibrates, starts to hum as if plucked. He watches it with a grim sort of satisfaction.

At his feet lies a bowl, and in that bowl is a gnarled branch, packed around with earth and a fine dusting of dirty-blond hairs. The bowl is aflame, and while the contents twist and dance in the fire, they are never consumed.

The goal is not to destroy, the goal is simply to torment.

He waves a hand over the spell, watches it gutter and spark, wonders how long until his victim breaks. It can't be long. Can’t be long before he’s rubble on the floor, ready for Crowley to swoop in and reform into whatever shape he so desires.

 _If_ he so desires. Perhaps his victim will just be left there to rot instead.

But of course that’s not the case. Crowley itches to check on his patient, his experiment, but he can't. Being forgotten suits him. If he pokes or prods they might put it together. The one they wronged and the nightmares Dean is suffering.

Crowley always has a contingency plan.

He lets the bitterness writhe and seethe through him, feeds it into the spell, lets it grow fat with wrath. He thinks he’s just providing fuel for his enchantment. He’s wrong. It doesn’t belong to him anymore. If Rowena were here she’d take one look at it and snap the threads, orphan it, send it spiralling off into the world in the hope that it breaks.

Too late now. Too many other factors. Complications, things buried deep in the marrow of Dean Winchester that even Crowley doesn’t know about. Little seeds planted years ago, withered and dormant. One particular seed that isn’t so little now, watered with blood and magic.

It has a hold in Dean now, and it won’t let him go. Not without a fight.

Not without payment.  

 

*

 

_There are bones as far as the eye can see. Scorched earth and spilled marrow. Mountains and mountains of them. Dean grabs one from the ground, brandishes it out in front of himself like a weapon, as if it’s some kind of defence. But nothing comes, nothing attacks._

_A gleam catches Dean’s attention and he tries to look away, avoid it, but it’s already too late. Sam sits, enthroned atop a hill of bones, and it’s not his crown that shines._

_It’s his yellow eyes._

 

*

 

Cas picks Dean up off the floor and places him on the bed.

“What the fuck was that, Cas?” Sam asks, too tired – emotionally, physically, spiritually, fucking pick one – to muster up any real panic.

“If I had to take a guess, I’d say that the forest doesn’t like to be cheated.”

“You think it’s—”

“Don’t you?” Cas can’t be arsed to wait for him to finish the sentence. He knows what Sam was going to say, even if it is rude to cut him off.

Sam nods slowly. “The timing, it can’t be a coincidence.”

Cas sits down on the bed next to Dean, wipes some of the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his trenchcoat. It’s an oddly human gesture, considering he could just wing it away with a blink and a brush of his fingers, Sam thinks, but doesn’t say. Humanity has left its mark on Cas in many and varied ways. Some good, some not so.

“So,” Sam asks instead. “What do we do now?”

“Something very stupid.” Cas replies.

Sam laughs.

“Yeah. Because so far we’ve been erring on the side of fucking caution. What’re you gonna do, try and carve it off with a knife?”

“No.”

Sam snorts. He was being facetious, but whatever.

“That’s my last resort.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“No.”

“And you think that’ll work?” Suddenly Sam has the energy to feel emotions and none of them are good ones.

“No.”

“Jesus Christ, Cas.”

“What’s the alternative? This thing is at least as strong as – maybe stronger than – the Mark of Cain. If we leave them to fight it out—”

“Dean’ll end up the civilian casualty in their total warfare?”

“Pretty much.”

Sam groans. “Tell me we have other options before we start sharpening the knives?”

“I’m going to enter his dreams.”

“No fucking way. Not after last time.” Sam snaps, terse and frustrated.

“I’ll be doing it a different way.”

“A more dangerous way?”

“Perhaps.”

“Wanna be less vague?”

“It can wait until Dean wakes up. In the mean time I need you to drive into town and acquire me some ingredients.”

Sam laughs, loud and vicious.

“If you think I’m going to leave you here alone to do fuck knows what, you’re mad.”

“Please, Sam.”

“No. I’m not moving until he wakes.”

Cas grits his teeth.

“Fine. You stay, I’ll go.”

“Should we maybe wait until Dean wakes up before we make these choices for him?”

“I don’t want to make any choices for him, but I can guarantee you he’ll say yes, and I want to be ready.”

“You saw how he reacted this time, and you think he’ll let you do something _more_ dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, why?”

“Because he tried to kill you. Failed this time, might not the next.”

“Is that a threat?”

Cas looks nonplussed.

“No. Of course not. I’m just laying out his mind-set to you.”

“I know his mind-set. I’ve lived with him for most of my life. He’s not going to see this as a sign that he should let you put yourself in more danger. He’s going to see it as a sign to hightail the fuck out of here and cut the damage.”

“He knows I won’t let that happen.”

Sam doesn’t know what he’s going to say next, just that it’ll be both sceptical and furious. He’s saved, obviously, predictably, from finding out when Dean sits bolt upright and howls.

Cas swears quietly, lays two fingers on Dean’s forehead and then flinches back.

“What?” Sam asks.

Cas shrugs.

“Nothing good.”

Sam counts to ten before he replies.

“Yes. I figured that. Care to elaborate?” He thinks he sounds remarkably calm, all things considered.

“There’s a lot of strain on his body currently. I think he’s back in the forest, but I don’t think it’s a normal visit.”

And he wants to laugh at his own wording, because 'normal visit'. Like it's something casual, a fucking sunday afternoon stroll in the murder woods of Dean's nightmares.

“Anything you can do to help?”

“Every time I try and help, I make it worse.”

Sam detects a little note in Cas’s voice. Suspects he’s talking in broader terms than just the here and now. Sam sighs, fights down his frustration and directionless, pointless anger. It’s not Cas he’s angry at. He’s just the nearest fucking target.

They need to start treating each other better. There’s always a degree of lashing out and fighting in a small, closed group. It’s okay – ish – between Sam and Dean, they get it, they understand that it’s nothing personal. Cas, well. The shit they’ve dumped on him, how could he not take any sideswipe to heart.

But Sam’s too tired to give that train of thought the self-disgust it deserves.

“Cas, it’s not your fault.” He says instead.

Cas just looks at him with that baleful gaze, and suddenly Sam knows he can’t stay in the room, best intentions or no.

“Tell me when he wakes up.”

Cas nods, turns his gaze back to Dean, his attention inwards. Bitter.

 

*

_They’re everywhere. Every time Dean whirls around he sees Cas’s split-mouthed grin, black tar tricking and bubbling to the ground, dripping from his eyes and out from between his teeth. The ground is tacky with it, his feet glueing to it, holding him down, trying to trap him._

_There’s a weapon in his hand and he lunges forwards with it, drives it into one Cas and then another. They’re not Cas. They’re not Cas. They’re just wearing his face. Leviathan can do that._

_Every Cas he pierces turns into mist before his eyes, rains down in a spatter of black and red and blue._

_The puddles coalesce into one great oily slick, rainbow sheened like petrol, growing thicker, taller._

_He knows what’s coming before it arrives, the towering wave that rises, slow and then gathering pace._

_He turns, and he runs._

 

*

 

Cas rolls Dean over on to his front, peels off his shirt and examines his back.

A red marker pen appears in Cas’s hand, and he traces, carefully, painstakingly, around the outline of the tree. He jots down the date and time in a notebook that appears by his leg.

He’s going to use the rings to mark the tree’s growth. There’s a word for what he’s doing. Something in the vague realms of irony, but not quite there. He’d be able to work it out if he put a bit more thought in, but frankly he doesn’t much care. The poetics don't interest him, he just wants to know when the tree grows, and how fast.

 

*

_In the distance Dean spies trees. He grits his teeth and corrects his course, runs towards the shelter. Towards the forest._

_He doesn’t reach it in time._

_Waves crash around him, pulverise his bones and mulch his flesh._

_He doesn’t die though._

_The water recedes, and somehow he manages to stand, limp forward until he’s under the shelter of the branches._

_He falls to his knees, buries his knuckles in the loamy dirt, begs the forest to just fucking get it over with._

_It obliges, sends him an okami with sharp teeth and a lust for flesh._

 

*

 

Dean doesn’t howl back to life this time. His eyes flare wide, his veins bulge. There’s a brief gust of sulphur, and then he’s awake.

He grabs hold of Cas’s arm with trembling fingers, strokes, reassures himself that it’s real.

“Cas.” He rasps. “Please, I need to get this thing off of me.”

 

*

 

Dean doesn’t agree gladly, but he agrees.

He’s visibly shaken. Blackouts he’s had, illusions he’s fought through. This is neither and fucking both.

He remembers everything – waking up, the headache, the hints in the shadows. The warped, twisted versions of Cas and Sam.

“If this thing is strong enough to come after me when I’m awake, make me see things that aren’t there. We’re already too fucking late.”

Cas doesn’t disagree.

“There’s another way for me to get into your dreams.”

“Is it more or less dangerous than sticking around here waiting for the next waking nightmare to hit?”

“I don’t know.”

Dean snorts.

“Of course not. C’mon then. Hit me with your worst.”

Cas explains what he wants to do. It’s a testament to how shaken Dean is that he doesn’t tell him to fuck off, instead just asks incredulously, “You want to Vulcan mind meld with me?”

“After a fashion.” Cas admits. “I believe you’ve done something similar before, with a dog.”

Dean holds up his hands.

“Back the fuck up. That spell made me start _behaving_ like a dog.”

Cas pretends he doesn’t know what Dean is driving at, shrugs, so what.

“Don’t you fucking shrug at me. This is serious! What happens if I start rubbing off on you – you get the crazy waking dreams and the nightmares too?”

“I won’t.”

“You sound pretty fucking certain of that.”

“I am. It took months for this thing to start affecting you. I’ll be connected to you for a few hours every night, and only until we get what we want. The risk is minimal.”

“Minimal. Not non-existent.”

“It’s more likely that I’ll positively affect you. You’re fighting on two fronts at the moment, this might give you some support.”

“You really think that?”

“I do.”

“But the risk—”

“Firstly, it’s a risk I am prepared to take, and secondly, it’s less risk than allowing this thing to go unchecked. We don’t know what it is, we don’t know what it wants. It might be changing you into something worse than a demon – in which case I am in danger anyway.”

Dean scrubs at his eyes, flicks through the alternatives.

If he runs, Cas and Sam will follow. He’s not dumb, he knows that. Sam didn’t find him before, but that was with Cas dying and not really able to help. He wouldn’t even make it out the door without a tail this time – Cas doesn’t sleep and has such a psychic sense for where Dean is in the bunker that he’s almost fucking sure he’s been chipped on the sly.

And if he doesn’t run but doesn’t let Cas do this, well, more of the same. The fucking tree on his back continues to grow, gain more power over him. It can already make him hallucinate in the waking world, what the fuck else will it do once it’s managed, somehow, to neutralise the Mark.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

 

*

 

By the time they’ve gathered all of the required ingredients, argued it out with Sam and moped around the bunker for a bit, it’s nearly time to go back to sleep. Not that Dean feels particularly tired, but hey, that’s what angel mojo is for, right?

The spell takes twenty minutes to prepare, and it tastes like dirt. Dean forces it down, even though he vowed that when he clawed his way out of his own grave would be the last time he had a mouthful of fucking earth.

“So,” Sam asks, “you feeling anything yet?”

Dean and Cas exchange glances. Nada.

“Maybe it takes a while to kick in.” Sam muses.

Cas shrugs. Balthazar taught him the spell – and what he used to use it for, Cas does not want to know – but he never specified the waiting time. Mind, Balthazar was not blessed with much patience, he would have complained, or sought alternatives, if it took _too_ long.

And then Dean starts to frown, soft at first, and then deeper. He sits down on the bed, blinks rapidly. There’s something going on in his head, something, something fucking weird.

Cas starts to feel it too, emotions that aren’t his starting to slip into the flow of his thoughts, a trickle at first and then a barrage.

Terror and anxiety and love and fury and despair and guilt, thick, viscous pools of guilt.

Dean’s emotions. He doesn’t think he’s going to survive this, and the thing he feels most about that is guilt at leaving Sam and Cas behind, heartbroken and alone.

Cas fights through the temptation to plunge into Dean’s mind, to absorb and to know him. Instead he does the decent thing and ignores it, pushes it away. It’s hard, but he manages it.

“This is fucking trippy.” Dean says. Cas wonders what’s to follow – what he can see in Cas’s head.

“My head is full of colours.”

“Colours?”

“Yeah. Mostly greens. Is this coming from you?”

“I guess.”

Sam pipes up.

“That psychic said the same thing.”

“What’re you getting from me – can you hear my thoughts?”

“No.” Cas doesn’t lie. He can’t hear Dean’s thoughts.

“Really?”

“I’m trying very hard not to.”

“Oh.”

“I thought you’d find it invasive.”

“Yeah, no, don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful.”

“But?”

“But maybe once we’ve sorted all of this out, we could put this thing to some more extracurricular uses.”

“You want to fuck like this?” Cas asks.

The light, jovial tone is so at odds with the flash of Dean’s emotions he glimpsed. Is this how Dean lives all the time, that undercurrent of despair and all that comes with it, masked by the surface emotions wrapped around it?

It can’t be. No-one could survive an entire life like that. Not even Dean.

“Dude. Imagine how good sex in stereo would be.”

“Guys!” Sam snaps.

Yeah, okay. Serious business.

Sam pulls up a chair and sits it by the side of the bed, cracks open his book. Yeah, like he’s gonna get a lot of fucking reading done. Like he’s not gonna be looking at every twitch and jump on the pair of them, wondering what it means, if they’re coming back.

Cas lies down on the bed and Dean curls around him – they’d agreed it best if Cas wasn’t touching Dean’s back. Just in case.

Cas trails light fingers over Dean’s ribs, renders him unconscious.

“You sure about this?” Sam asks, as Cas draws in a few deep breaths. He’s never knocked himself out before. Hopes it won’t have any adverse effects.

“As much as I need to be.”

Dean’s lack of consciousness pulls at him, urges him to follow it under.

And so he does.

 

*

 

The next time Cas opens his eyes, he’s surrounded by trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY IT'S SO LATE, I AM LITERALLY RUBBISH. BLEAUGH. 
> 
> HOW ARE YOU ALL, WHAT DID YOU GET UP TO WHILE I WAS AWAY, I hope you didn't think I wasn't coming back and jumped ship lol
> 
> Also, I now have a Supernatural only blog at [rabidbinbadger](http://rabidbinbadger.tumblr.com/) which you should go follow ;D


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely people. Sorry it's a wee bit shorter than usual, but it's been MENTAL at work because of the sudden interest in the refugee crisis. So many lovely people donating or emailing in to offer up their houses, their time and their resources. 
> 
> Sometimes the human race is excellent.

Something is jabbing Dean in the ribs and he’d really fucking like it to stop. He tries to ignore it, but it’s incessant, and if he’s honest, bordering on painful. He mumbles something to this effect, flails his arm out to the side to try and slap Cas and his stupid boots away. He misses and decides fuck it, allows gravity to take his hand where it will.

It flops to the ground, and instead of memory foam, it slaps dirt.

Dean scrambles to his feet and fumbles into a defensive stance even as his brain very slowly comes to the realisation that a monster would be too busy rending his flesh with its teeth or claws or whatever to bother kicking him awake.

He can’t see who it is, optical nerves apparently deciding they can’t be arsed with the whole being awake thing and refusing to pass on coherent messages to his brain. All he’s got is a silhouette. Doesn’t take much guessing to work out who it is though. Who’s mind melded to him in an attempt to hitch a ride to his worst fucking nightmares and likes to be a dick without causing irreparable physical harm?

“Cas?” Dean asks, rubs at his eyes and tries to threaten them into working again.

Come on, he’s a hunter. He’s used to going from spark out to full throttle and he doesn’t know where this easing into consciousness bullshit is coming from. Fuck the encroaching tidal wave of middle age. Fuck it in the ass.

“Guess again, brother.” A familiar, Cajun tone rumbles.

Dean’s vision finally gets with the program, resolves the blurry silhouette into a recognisable figure.

“What the fuck?” Dean exclaims,

“I could ask you the same question.” Benny replies with a grin.

 

*

 

They told Sam to keep watch. They didn’t tell Sam what to keep watch _for_. He doesn’t know whether he’s supposed to be keyed up for big crap – ravening hordes of demons pouring out of Cas’s mouth, or maybe Dean becoming a beacon for monsters in the real world and not just in his head – or if he’s watching for little twinges and twitches. The jaw ticks and skipped heartbeats that suggest someone is in some big bad trouble, good luck getting them out of it when you know literally nothing about it.

Dean rolls over and scrunches up his face and Sam isn’t sure whether that’s a sign of something. Should he be springing up to action, or what?

Dean lets out an explosive burp, sighs, and wriggles closer into Cas’s side.

They look mortifyingly, embarrassingly cute, and if Sam wasn’t busy not reading his book and worrying that either his brother or his friend or fucking both is/are about to die for real, maybe he’d go get a camera and take some pictures for epic blackmail material.

But he is too busy worrying, and it’s mainly because of Cas. He didn’t say anything, but every time Sam tried to steer the conversation in a certain direction, Cas cut him off with a meaningful glance at Dean. And look, Sam gets that he didn’t want to give Dean an excuse to duck out of what was clearly a fucking hard fought decision, but fucking hell, this is definitely one of those things you discuss and weigh up the options on before you dive in. (Although who is he fucking kidding, when do they ever come at anything like this with a measured approach).

The problem is, they don’t know enough about this crap. So Cas manages to get into Dean’s dream. Great, step one. But what happens while he’s there? Dean gets hurt there, he pulls his injuries back home with him. Does that only happen because of that huge fucking tree thing on his back, or is it something to do with the dream itself – will the same thing happen to Cas?

And even if Cas is unscathed, well, Dean gets out of this by falling asleep – with hideous consequences, or by dying with – because this is their lives – less dramatic ones. Where does that leave Cas? Can he escape the same way Dean does – will Dean leaving pull him out too, or trap him there in Dean’s nightmares.

Sam has a bowl of ingredients and a lighter to use if he thinks things get nasty. A herbal knife to sever the cord that winds Dean and Cas together. A knife which he was instructed only to use in the direst of circumstances, because they don’t know what the consequences of ripping two minds apart like that might be. You’re supposed to let them unwind in their own time. You cut them down the middle, and maybe everything is fine, but maybe instead the edges start to fray and both minds disintegrate.

And the direst of circumstances, well, what the fuck does that even mean?

Hi Sam, welcome to the hospital tent. I know you haven’t been through an ounce of medical training, but, I mean, you’ve hunted doctors and you’ve killed them, so that’s basically the same thing, right? Cool. So, here, have this hacksaw in case of emergencies. This guy in front of you, he might have gangrene and he might not. Your job is to notice the instant the infection takes root and slice off the affected limb. How will you know? No idea. Good luck. Oh, and make sure you don’t cut it off too early or he’ll probably bleed to death.

 

*

 

Cas picks himself up off the floor and dusts off his trenchcoat. He doesn’t dare use his powers to clean himself up. Even with his reduced batteries, he’ll be radiating angelic essence to every godforsaken creature within the infinite boundaries of this forest.

He knows where he is, of course. He knew before he opened his eyes – the air hums and crackles in a very familiar way. He curses himself for not putting it together. A forest full of monsters. Something old enough to quell the Mark of Cain.

It’s been a while since he was here, but it isn’t the sort of place you forget. The murky forests you intended as your final resting place. The woods you were going to run through for the rest of your limited life as penance for betraying your loved ones.

Purgatory.

The first thing Cas thinks, after the realisation, is that he needs to apologise to Dean. It turns out that he was getting taken to a real place after all, not just some warped and twisted nightmare landscape created by the thing on his back.

His second thought is that this makes no sense. He is physically in purgatory – he’s an angel, he has ways of telling these things – but at the same time, he is also definitely lying in his and Dean’s bed in the bunker.

His third thought is doppelgangers with a psychic link. If the connection was strong enough, any injury on the copy would slice through to the original as well. It’d explain a lot of things, but most especially how Dean died every time, but only started carrying his injuries over recently.

His fourth thought is, okay, I should stop thinking about the how of this, and start thinking of the how the fuck do I get Dean out of this. And that starts with getting to him.

Cas concentrates, hones in on the familiar shape of Dean’s mind, and sets off at a run.

 

*

 

Dean looks Benny up and down and then he starts to laugh, hysterically.

“What?!” He yells at the sky. “Bringing my worst nightmares to life wasn’t good enough, y’gotta dredge up old, dead friends too?”

The sky doesn’t answer.

“Dean. Are you okay?” Benny shifts his hand subtly to his belt.

When he saw the figure lying in the dirt he was so, so sure it was Dean. Looked like him, even smelled like him. Mostly. There’s something off. Benny pulls in a few deep lungfuls of air, tastes Dean, tries to parse out the different elements.

He gets one, and he’s more surprised than he really should be.

“Something smells funny about you, and I don’t just mean the angel spunk.”

Dean laughs, all facetious sneers and disbelief.

“Yeah, well, much as I enjoy bouncing up and down on his cock and vice versa, it’s been longer than I’d like since I got laid. Which you know, being in my fucking head and all.”

“Dean, brother. I’m right here. What I’m trying to figure is why you are.”

“Not invited to my own nightmares?”

“What?”

“Don’t play coy with me, sunshine.” Dean pushes at Benny’s chest, the joke wearing off and just leaving frustration in its place. “I know this is just a part of whatever sick games this bullshit tree is playing.”

“Tree?”

“I don’t know why I’m fucking engaging with you. This is all in my head, and Cas isn’t fucking here, so I might as well just cut my losses and go find an out.”

“You’re going through the portal again?”

“Portal? Yeah, if that’s what you wanna call it fucking go ahead. Now why don’t you make yourself useful and stab me or something. Put those fangs to their Eve given purpose, yeah?”

Benny grabs hold of Dean and shakes him. “Snap out of it.” He roars, letting go of Dean’s shoulders but coming right in to his face to scream. Dean hacks up a great gobful of saliva and spits it onto Benny’s face.

“What’ve you been getting yourself mixed up in, brother?” Benny asks, stepping away and wiping it off with the back of his hand.

“Like you don’t know.” Dean scoffs, spins around and scans the darkness beneath the trees as far as he can see. “Nothing, nothing, nothing. Have I gotta do everything around here?”

“What you lookin for?”

“You got a weapon?”

Now it’s Benny’s turn to laugh.

“No, brother, I’ve been surviving the mean streets of purgatory with just my teeth and my wits.”

Dean feels uneasy at the mention of purgatory, but he brushes it aside. Underneath, the cogs are turning, the connections are slipping neatly into place. The conscious mind won’t accept it though, not yet. It wants more proof before it starts to really flip the fuck out.

“Give it here.” Dean commands, and Benny considers, hands Dean his smallest knife. No one should go unarmed in this place. Not even Dean Winchester.

“Looks like you are good or something.” Dean says with a small laugh, positioning the blade over his heart.

Benny realises what he’s about to do, lunges forwards.

 

*

 

They’re in purgatory, really in purgatory, and Cas knows he’s in trouble. Because the wheels have been turning, and there are still a lot of things he needs to understand – how, why now, what purgatory wants – because you can be damn sure it wants something.

But, more importantly, he needs to get back to Dean and stop him slitting his wrists or something to get out of this dream.

Because if they were just in Dean’s head, it wouldn’t matter if Dean killed himself here. Well, it would, but not to Cas necessarily. The dream would just crumble and he’d be ejected.

But they’re not in a dream. They’re in a real place, and Dean is the only bridge home. There’ll be no angelic respite this time. If Dean kills himself, or if he dies, the bond tethering Cas to him will be cut and Cas will be stuck here.

He was fine with that once before.

He’s not fine with it anymore.

So he runs, and he hopes and he prays that Dean hasn’t woken up alone and tried to take the quickest route home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HANDS UP, WHO GUESSED THE BIG REVEAL hehehe.
> 
> What do you guys think? Disappointed, excited, confused? HIT ME


	23. Chapter 23

Cas leaps and bounds through the trees with apparent reckless disregard for his own health, but it only seems that way. He’s not stupid. He knows he’s only here because purgatory wants something from him. It wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of giving him a body if it didn’t.

He just hopes he gets out of here before he finds out what.

He keeps up the pretence of desperate carelessness while maintaining a wary eye on his surroundings, dodges the vines swaying gently in the windless dusk, the uneven patch of leaves that could be a natural disturbance, or which could be disguising a pitfall trap.

He feels a sudden spike of emotion from Dean’s mind – something is happening to him, but Cas can’t tell what – whether it’s good or bad or somewhere in between. The air in purgatory is thick with magic and ritual, it should be enhancing their connection, not dampening it. Cas keeps trying to reach out, warn Dean, tell him not to take the quick route home, but he doesn’t get a response, doesn’t think it’s worked.

There’s a reason purgatory put them apart, a reason it’s trying to keep it that way. The dirt under Cas’s feet is getting thick and muddy, clinging to his shoes and slowing him down. He could use his grace, not to fly perhaps, but at least to ease his progress over the land.

Except angels are not the most dangerous creatures in purgatory, not by a whole way, and the leviathan will remember him.

Without his wings, the only reason he hasn’t been taken is because he’s reduced. They haven’t noticed him yet, it’s understandable. The last time he was here, he was a floodlight in the dim murk of purgatory – every beast and abomination for miles around knew exactly where and what he was. Now he’s one little white light in a writhing sea of blacks and greys.

They’ll find him eventually, of course they will – word spreads fast in purgatory. He doesn’t imagine it’ll be long before old and terrible things start stretching their limbs, sharpening their claws and preparing for the hunt.

So Cas just runs. He runs until the trees start to grow close, branches reaching out to touch each other, binding together so that he has to duck his head under them. Until the roots that had been rising up to trip and snag at his feet try something different, knit themselves together.

Until his way is blocked by a heavy wall of branches and brambles and thorns.

He’s close, close enough that he can feel Dean’s determination at the edge of his mind. Close enough that he can almost feel the decision Dean makes to hold a knife to his breast, and start to push.

“NO!” Cas screams to the air, pushes the thought at Dean with all the power he can muster.

His right arm springs up and a blast of grace leaps from his fingers unbidden, incinerates the trees in a blast radius around him, reveals space which he rushes into before it can be sealed again.

He can practically hear all the fell souls of purgatory snap their heads in his direction.

 

*

 

Dean pushes the knife against his breast, feels the tip dig into flesh – and then he flings the weapon away.

He looks down at his hand as if it’s just betrayed him, snarls.

“What the fuck?”

It’s all Dean gets to say before Benny powers him to the ground, kneels across his chest and pins his arms under powerful legs

Dean bucks underneath him, drawls in a sneering parody of Benny’s accent.

“Couple of years too late for that, brother.”

Benny ignores the jibe, no matter how much it stings.

“What in the hell is wrong with you, Dean?”

“Everything is fucking wrong with me.” Dean snarls. “The nightmares, the visions of dead friends and not so fucking dead friends—”

“Woah, there. What the hell are you talking about?”

“You KNOW!” Dean howls, bringing his knees up and slamming them into Benny’s back. Benny grimaces, but doesn’t let go, uses the full force of his vampiric strength to keep Dean pinned down.

“I don’t, Dean. I don’t know how you’re in purgatory again, I don’t know why you’re here or why you’re trying to kill yourself. So maybe do me the benefit of explainin?”

But Dean doesn’t. He stops thrashing and just lies there, even though he knows Benny won’t be fooled – won’t think he’s giving in and let him up. And anyway, Benny’s all in his fucking head, how can you trick someone who knows exactly what you're thinking.

But no, ‘cause if that’s the case then there’s nothing Dean can do to escape, he might as well just fucking lie here.

Which, nah. Not something that’s gonna happen.

Why the fuck is he here anyway?  Is this the forest fucking with him again, like it did with Sam and Cas?

Or is it his own brain trying to teach him a fucking lesson? Is Benny some bullshit part of his consciousness popping up out of crap knows where to help or hinder him? Are they going to have a zen moment where Dean realises blah blah blah blah?

He just wants to go home. He wants to wake up next to Cas and not be drenched in sweat and shaking, breathing in the remnants of sulphur from the air.

He wants to be fucking normal for five fucking minutes.

But he doesn’t get that. And the only way he gets to go back to Cas – and not accidentally stab him in the throes of some fucked up hallucination – is if he dies here. It’s fucking shit, but it’s all he’s got.

He steels himself, takes in a few deep, sucking breaths, and then bites down on his tongue. Blood floods his mouth, not enough to choke on, but enough to send even the best of vampires into a feeding frenzy.

He spits a gob of it up, directly onto Benny’s face.

Try resisting that.

 

*

 

Cas can hear something laughing behind him. He doesn’t dare turn around to look, he has to concentrate on darting ahead, using his grace now to add speed to his stride, blasting the trees whenever they start to pull themselves together to block his path. The damage is done, anything that would be alerted by expulsion of grace already knows he’s here, so now he might as well put it to some good use.

Cas doesn’t like to assume, but in the back of his mind he suspects purgatory allowed him to come here as revenge. He stole all of its souls away, drained them and poured them back weak and gasping. Cas thinks maybe it wants to allow them to take revenge on him for the slight.

He’s wrong.

The only reason Cas is still alive, is because purgatory is shielding him. Only one monstrous soul knows he’s here, and that’s the creature following him. Something so small and lessened, that even the malevolent, conscious forest that surrounds it hasn’t noticed it.

Purgatory has big plans for Cas, but all of them hinge on him being alive.

 

*

 

Twice, Cas nearly falls down a hole, is only saved at the very last second by quick wit and enhanced eyesight.

And as he runs, guilt writhes and seethes inside his chest. Whatever is on his tail, he’s leading it straight to Dean.

He doesn’t have a choice though. Dean needs to know what he’s up against, that the forest really is purgatory.

He knows Dean will figure it out eventually, but, eventually might be too late.

And well, Cas knows Dean. If the connection snaps and he ends up home and Cas is stuck here, he won’t just leave it at that. He’ll blame himself, and he’ll come back here no matter the consequence. He’ll throw himself back into his dreams in the hope of one day stumbling across Cas, in a forest so deep and so old that it stretches on infinitely. In a forest actively trying to keep them apart.

It can’t split them up too far, not while their minds are joined together. Once that snaps, well. It’ll be able to put Dean wherever it wants the next time he’s dragged back to these woods. And Cas is certain that will be a very, very long way away from him.

 

*

 

Benny flinches as the blood hits his face, tenses to spring up and away, before it can really get to him, before that sweet scent hits and he’s gone, the beast all that’s left. He’s assaulted by memories that he still has to work hard to suppress, always coalescing there just beneath the surface, taunting and goading him. Memories of Dean getting injured in fights – more memories than he’d like to admit to – and Benny not being able to help the fangs that slipped themselves out of his gums without permission.

He remembers the thick, sweet, overwhelming smell of Dean’s blood. He remembers just about managing to run away each time, and the hours they spent apart while Benny fought down his monstrous nature and Dean found somewhere to clean off his own blood, smother himself in the muck and mire of purgatory to hide the all too human smell of him.

He’d always smelled so good. Better than any human since Andrea.

Benny never told Dean that, for the same reasons he never made any advance on him. Always the fear that Dean would say yes. The fear that they’d fuck, and Benny wouldn’t be able to resist the succulent smell of him up close, would bury his teeth in Dean’s neck and devour him in every possible way. The delight of fucking into him – hearing his gasping little moans and cries – crescendoing into the ecstasy of feeding off him. One perfect moment followed by an afterlife to regret it in.

 The fear that they’d fuck once, twice, and the angel Dean wouldn’t stop searching for would be found, and that’d be that.

He was always going to lose Dean, Benny knew that, knows that, so he tried to limit the damage. And then, along Dean comes, smelling of Cas and proving him right.

He ignores the little whisper in the back of his head, saying, yeah, well, maybe that only happened because you weren’t there to stop it. He knows that Dean was always going to end up with Cas, or ruined by Cas. Either way, not Benny’s place to interfere.

Dean makes a frustrated sound beneath him, and Benny realises he hasn’t moved.  He’s been sitting here, perfectly sanguine, with Dean’s blood on his face.

He starts, reaches a hand up to touch it – this doesn’t make a lick of sense. The bloodlust isn’t something that just wears off if you spend enough time away from humans. And even if it was, he’s not been down here long – was down here longer the first time, when Dean’s presence was so potent.

Unless Dean isn’t human any more.

Before that revelation has a real chance to floor him, Dean scowls and slams at Benny with his knees again.

“See, even if I believed you were real, this sloppy sort of shit is all the proof I need. The real Benny? He’d have run a fucking mile.” Dean’s gaze slips away from Benny and to the sky behind him and he sneers bitterly. “Too fucking lazy to even raid my memories properly now? Half-assing it?”

“Are you human, Dean?”

“Fuck off, Benny.”

“Dean!” Benny snaps, and Dean flinches a little as his fangs slide out in anger. “Are you human?”

Dean doesn’t answer.

“It’s a simple enough question, brother.”

“It’s complicated.”

“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the figment of my imagination. You work it out.”

Benny curses, punches at the ground just beside Dean’s head. Dean doesn’t flinch this time.

“You don’t scare me. Go on, kill me. See if I give a shit.”

“Why do you wanna die so bad, brother?”

“It’s the only way of getting out of here.”

“The Dean I knew wouldn’t ever have killed himself.”

“It only matters if you know you won’t wake up on the other side.” Dean sneers.

“That what you’re betting on? That something’s gonna intervene again?”

“The Mark always brings me back.”

“Who’s Mark?”

Dean thrashes underneath Benny again.

“I don’t have time for this! I just want to get back.”

But Benny just shakes his head, doesn’t move.

 

*

 

Cas is still running, but he’s nervous, confused. He can’t sense Dean anymore. Well, no, that’s a lie. He can, just about. But there’s something else filling all of his senses now. A crackling, vibrating pull.

He can feel the phantom heat of Dean’s grip on his arm, see the shock and hurt in his eyes as Cas lets go and pulls away. Stays in purgatory while Dean and Benny return to earth.

Cas can’t help but feel like it’s some kind of omen.

It can’t be that. It won’t be. Dean must just be close to the portal, so close that it’s blocking him out. Why the fuck else would it be getting all moulded and messed up with him.

Cas shakes his head like a dog, some desperate effort to clear the interference from his head.

It doesn’t work. He’s just going to have to keep going for the portal and hope he finds Dean there beside it. Hope that Dean doesn’t wander through it in a reckless fit of pique. He doesn’t know what the consequences of having two bodies on earth will be, but well, it’s their fucking lives, of course it won’t be good.

 

*

 

“You ain’t going nowhere ‘til I get to the bottom of what’s fucking you up, brother.”

Dean laughs.

“You’ll need a bitch of a shovel to get that far.”

Benny ignores him, leans down close to Dean’s mouth and the blood still welling gently there. Dean leers up at him.

“Already told you, vampirate, that ship has fucking sailed.”

Benny thinks he hears a note of something under the snark and the malice, not regret, necessarily, maybe a ruefulness. Maybe a whole huge fucking heap of wishful thinking on Benny’s part.

Dean snaps his teeth together inches from Benny’s nose, spits again when that doesn’t do anything to deter him.

Benny pulls in deep, heavy lungfuls of Dean’s blood. He can just about smell Dean’s unique scent, just enough to make his mouth water but not enough to pull out his fangs. It’s smothered in other things. Hints of just about everything – sulphur and peat, and, _something_. Something magical. An electric crackle of something that’s familiar enough to recognise, but not enough to place.

 

*

 

Cas bursts into the clearing, sees Benny pinning Dean to the ground. He launches himself over, grabs the vampire by the collar and flings him away, howling with rage. White grace gathers in Cas’s left hand. He’s reduced, weakened by his toil, but he still just has enough left to atomise this bastard and stay conscious.

He storms over to where Benny landed, hauls him up, wants to see the fucking terror in his eyes as he dies for daring to attack Dean.

“Cas?” Dean rasps, wary, uncertain.

He wants to think it’s Cas, but if it was, why wasn’t he there when Dean woke up? It’s already been proved that these dreams can replicate him – sort of. How the fuck is Dean supposed to trust anything he sees here?

“Stay back, Dean. I’ve got this.”

Dean sees the crackle of grace in Cas’s hand, realises what he’s about to do.

“Cas! Don’t!”

Cas turns back, and there are blue sparks dancing behind his eyes. As their gaze meets, Dean’s mind suddenly fills with colour. Green and red and blue, all twisting and writhing in a neon mess. The forest’s grip on him, the uncertainty and doubt it’d been sowing in his mind waver, fade away.

He knows that it really is Cas standing in front of him, blazing with wrath. Really is Benny helpless in his grip.

Which means—

No. Not right now.

“Cas. He wasn’t trying to hurt me.”

Dean picks himself up off the floor and puts his hand on Cas’s shoulder.

“It’s fine, buddy. You can let go.”

Cas doesn’t, but he does stop the white sparks from sputtering threateningly around his hand.

“He was about to drain you?”

“I wasn’t.” Benny adds. Not that he thinks it’ll help much.

“Then what were you doing?” Cas turns back to him with a snarl.

“Trying to work out why I didn’t want to drain him.”

Cas narrows his eyes, sees the blood splatter on Benny’s face.

“Is that Dean’s?”

“Yup. And lookit, my fangs aren’t even out.”

Cas confirms with a glance and drops him to the floor. Benny huffs a long-suffering sigh, picks himself up and dusts himself off.

“Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

“I’m not your friend.”

“I’m wounded, brother.”

“So, Cas…” Dean interrupts. “Care to, uh, explain what this is all about, huh?”

Cas looks at him with narrowed eyes and then looks around.

He should be able to see the portal. He can feel it, so close its setting his teeth on edge.

Coming right from where Dean is standing…

 Cas connects dots.

All of them, this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10 points to anyone who spots the TERRIBLE TERRIBLE PUN I slipped into this chapter.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late, I have no excuse except ennui and creative lethargy.

Dean is trying very hard not to panic, but it isn’t easy when Cas is staring through him like that, eyes darting from point to point, like he’s joining dots and realising that the picture is forming into something big and bad and standing directly behind Dean.

“Cas, buddy.” He says urgently.  “You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

Cas snaps back to his own head, ignores Dean and turns to Benny.

“Knock us out.”

“Why?”

Cas wants to wring his fucking neck. They don’t have time for questions.

“Just do it.” He growls, and Benny holds up his hands, placating.

“I dunno what shit you two’re mixed up in, but I—”

“Do what he says, Benny.”

Dean recognises that look in Cas’s eye – something very fucking bad is about to go down and he’s desperately trying to avoid it. If he thinks they can do that by checking out, well. Fuck it. He seems to know more about this bullshit than any of the rest of them despite only having been here five fucking minutes.

“All you two’ve done since you got here is try and get me to hurt youse. I don’t like that, and I don’t trust it.”

 

*

 

Sam counts the strands of brown hair fisted in his hands and on the floor. He figures Dean and Cas owe him a trip to the fucking hairdressers – or the Belgravia centre. With the amount of stress he’s gone through in the last few months – or the last fucking forever, depending on how you want to look at it – he’s surprised he isn’t plucked like a fucking chicken.

And okay, some of the stress isn’t actually Dean and Cas’s fault. It’s things outside of their control, fading grace, hellish nightmares and demonic marks. Some of it is still theirs though – pigheaded stubbornness, fucking idiocy, having the emotional maturity of a battered fish. Y’know. The usual Dean and Cas bullshit.

Nothing much has happened in the last hour – Cas has lain still as the dead (okay, no, bad comparison, bad brain, stop that) and Dean has shuffled and snorted and gradually worked his way closer to Cas, like he’s fed up of being his own individual human being and is trying to burrow in between Cas’s ribs or something.

It happens gradually, and once Sam notices he fucking kicks himself for it, but in his defence it would be perfectly normal if it were happening to anyone who wasn’t Castiel.

Sweat beads on Cas’s forehead, trails down his face to the bed, and Sam doesn’t notice. It’s not until it soaks through his grey t-shirt – one which Dean had foisted on him with a scowl and some sort of subtextual argument that Sam didn’t understand and isn’t sure he wanted to – that it catches Sam’s attention.

Sweating in your sleep is normal for humans. Not for angels.

Sam stands so quickly he kicks the chair back and nearly stumbles. One hand brushes against Dean as he tries to regain his balance and he flinches back at the unexpected heat. Now that Sam is closer he can feel it pouring off Dean - no wonder Cas is sweating if he's squashed up against that.

Sam lays his palm across Cas’s forehead, expecting him to feel somewhat the same. He’s disappointed. Where Dean is burning up, Cas has gone the other way. Fire and Ice.

It’s like touching Lucifer.

Sam is really fucking fed up of things that make no sense and that he doesn’t understand, but because he’s Sam, he makes it his job to try and change that. He’s methodical about it, taps his fingers against Cas’s chest, the place where Dean’s head is pillowed. The result is... interesting.

He goes and gets a forehead thermometer, having little to no fucking desire to sit here fondling his fucking brother and best friend if he can avoid it.

What he finds is strange. Or maybe it isn’t. Two opposing states, two minds melded together, two bodies at opposite states of the temperature scale trying to even each other out.

The temperature difference is greatest the furthest from their points of contact, closest where they’re touching.

Sam sits back down, fists his hands back into his hair and tries not to pull even more out. Theories, he has one, vaguely, sort of. Suspects that maybe it’s actually nothing to do with the dreams. Dean is infected with hell, Cas is an angel. Maybe mind-melding it up is causing their natures to fight and this temperature stuff is just an outward sign of that. Sure, it was Lucifer who ran cold, but he was an angel, whether fallen or not. The Mark of Cain is a thing of rage and violence and heat. It sort of makes sense.

Look, it sounds like bullshit, Sam knows that, but it makes more sense than anything else he’s thinking.

 So what does he do? This doesn’t seem like an emergency situation, sure he reckons if he licked Cas (ew) his tongue would stick to him, and he could fry an egg on Dean’s ankles, but that’s just weird. It’s not, y’know, big flashing neon warnings. He doesn’t think, anyway.

Maybe he should be worried that Cas is sweating – do people sweat in the cold, it doesn’t sound likely but it’s Cas so who the fuck knows really.

He’s been thinking that on a loop, but with more and increasingly varied swearwords, for he doesn’t know how long when things start to get genuinely alarming.

It starts with Dean shivering, teeth chattering as he tries to turn away from Cas. He isn’t allowed to, Cas’s arm stretching out to surround him, pull him in close and tight. It’d be sweet, if it wasn’t…yeah.

Sam is just standing up to intervene – pull Cas’s arm out of the way and let Dean escape or something, when the need is removed. Cas lets go, but Dean doesn’t try and roll away this time. He stays supine as Cas sits bolt upright, eyes flaring open and burning blue-white with grace.

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

White light masses around his fingers and Sam throws himself forward – intending to what he doesn’t know exactly, but he needn’t have bothered. The blast disappears the moment it leaves Cas’s fingers, and not in a dissipating into nothing way either, in a blasting its way through into another dimension way (Sam has a lot of downtime and he watches a lot of shitty films okay). Seconds later the smell of burning trees fills the room. Not good SO NOT GOOD OH DEAR GOD NOT GOOD.

Dean is lying on the bed shaking, Cas is sitting upright and sending blast after blast of grace into fuck knows where.

This has got to qualify as an emergency situation.

Sam looks around the room, hunting desperately for the bowl of spellwork to break the tie. He finds it tipped over on the floor. He must have kicked it in his panic. FUCK. Some of the ingredients are salvageable, some of them definitely aren’t. Oh, jesus, fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Okay, concentrate. He knows what’s in it, he just needs to run down to the basement and grab a few ingredients and hope that no-one blows up or travels into a parallel dimension or something in the meantime.

By the time Sam gets back Cas has stopped firing, but his hand still glows white. Dean at least is prone on the bed, so that’s probably a good thing. Sam can see him breathing. His chest heaving up and down. That’s a good thing, a really fucking good thing.

Sam rips apart bundles of herbs, drops handfuls into the bowl and mutters an incantation over the resulting mix. Cas’s hand stops glowing white and Sam speeds up desperately, lights a match and drops it in even as Cas falls back to the bed, grace no longer blazing.

 

*

 

Cas snarls in frustration, grabs Dean’s arm in a vicious grip, so hard that he winces in pain.

“Dean and I aren’t really here, you knock us out and we’ll vanish, leaving you free to run from the leviathan on my tail.”

“But—”

“I am trying to be merciful. My control is erratic – I could knock myself and Dean out but it’ll get you too. You’ll be unconscious and they’ll be furious at having us snatched away.”

Benny swears. This makes no fucking sense, but Cas seems desperate. He keeps glancing into the clearing behind him, and he looks like he’s actually fucking sweating.

Benny bounces his fists, decks Dean and Cas with all the force he possesses.

 

*

   Cas takes in a deep juddering breath, opens his eyes and looks around, manic, scared. He’s got a hunted look about him, and it’s really fucking familiar to Sam. It’s the same look Dean used to have on him in the months after purgatory, suspicious of the switch from having spent a year looking over his shoulder all the time to relative calm. Wired from being pulled back to that world in his nightmares and waking up thinking he’s still there.

Whatever Cas saw in Dean’s dreams, it was bad.

Yeah, Sam thinks to himself. No fucking shit.

“You okay?” He asks, and Cas flinches, does a double take and then looks at him properly.

“Sam.” He sighs out his name, a relief, a benediction, and then he turns to Dean.

He’s still unconscious.

“Dean?” Cas asks desperately. He can feel the physical presence of Dean in his head, a nagging, tingling buzz at the edge of his skull. That’s all he’s got, though. There’s nothing personal about it. Nothing Dean.

He takes in a deep breath, smells smoke and herbs – looks at Sam in alarm.

“Did you use the spell?” He croaks, voice cracked and raw as though he’s spent the last few hours screaming, graceless and unable to repair himself.

“Something really fucking weird was happening, Cas. I had to.”

Cas nods vacantly, tries to work out what’s going on.

There’s no reason for Dean to be unconscious still. Unless he’s just asleep. Which is possible, but let’s face it, is it likely?

Sam gives him a moment to gather himself, and then he asks, can’t restrain himself any longer.

“Did you find out what it was?”

Cas laughs, bitterly.

“It’s purgatory, Sam.”

“What?”

“Purgatory. Real, actual purgatory.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“And yet somehow it’s still happening.”

There’s something else, there has to be. Sam knows Cas. If that was the full stop he’d already be talking solutions and possibilities. But he’s not. He’s looking tired and angry and a little bit scared.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Cas laughs again, and it’s not a good sound on him. It’s the sound of someone bitter and jaded and furious and who doesn’t see a way out of their current predicament. Whatever that predicament is.

“It’s not just dragging him there for the fun of it, it has a purpose.”

Sam makes the universal hand gesture of stop being melodramatic and fucking tell me before I snap your spine. Cas laughs again, tells him.

“It’s turning him into a portal.”

And then his eyes roll into the back of his head and he falls back onto the bed, unconscious.

 

*

 

Dean feels really fucking bad. Tired and feverish, the kind of unsteadiness you get from going to bed on a three day empty stomach. He’s disorientated, confused. Forgets where he is and what’s going on. He flops his arm out over Cas’s chest and groans.

“Bacon me.”

“Dean?” Sam’s tone is, well, it’s not reassuring.

Dean sits up entirely too fast, groans and rubs at his head.

“What?”

And then his brain catches up.

They were in – his brain stutters and stumbles over the word, even now trying to protect him from the realisation, or maybe it’s the tree trying to defend itself from being found out. He grits his teeth and forces the thought through.

They were in _purgatory._

And now Dean is back in the waking world.

But where the fuck is Cas?

 

*

 

Cas opens his eyes again, and everything is white.

“Dean?” He shouts, feels the vibration of his throat, knows he said it.

But no noise comes out.


	25. Chapter 25

When Cas opens his eyes again he’s in a familiar place. White floor and walls, a line of frosted glass windows on one side. A dentist’s chair with steel cuffs chafing at his wrists.

“No.” He whispers, and the sound carries to the air this time. “No!” He repeats, louder. “NO!”

 

*

 

“What happened?” Dean asks, and his tone might be relatively calm, but Sam can see the slightly manic glaze to his eyes, wide and jittery as he leans down to check Cas’s pulse, heaves out a sigh of relief when he feels that it’s definitely still there.

Sam sifts through the past half hour, decides to share it all. He doesn’t know what’s pertinent and what’s not, and they’ve been stung by that before.

“I noticed Cas was sweating, took both of your temperatures. He was ice cold—”

“Not anymore.”

“What?”

“He’s warm now.”

“Oh. Uh. Okay.”

 

*

 

No-one comes for the first few hours, but Cas knows better than to think that means he’s safe. Naomi has her ways. She can wipe him clean and start again. She can do whatever she wants. Maybe she’s been here already, fiddling with his wiring, scooping out bits of his brain and pouring them down the gutter.

He’s not sure he’d even know.

How do you notice the lack of something if you never knew it was there?

Other people, that’s how.

There aren’t any other people with him here, though. It’s just Cas.

 

*

 

Sam waits for Dean to carry on, say something. He doesn’t, just looks at Sam with a worried, please give me a fucking clue here expression.

“It was weird, but not y’know, warning bells. Not until you started shivering and he started firing off bolts of grace.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, and that worries Sam more than it ought.

“He fired them off and they vanished into nowhere.”

Dean nods, like this makes sense.

“So I used the spell to bring you back.”

Dean’s eyes go wide. He remembers the warnings Cas gave with that spell, doesn’t like this one bit. But he also trusts Sam, knows he wouldn’t have done this if there was another option. Now he’s just caught up wondering how bad things must have been.

“And that’s where I woke up?”

“No. That’s where _Cas_ woke up.”

 

*

 

There’s something wrong with this scene. Naomi is dead, has been for a long time.

But how can he trust that?

She made him kill Samandrial. She made him almost kill Dean.

Maybe none of this really happened. Maybe he’s been strapped to this chair for years; nightmares and dreams and love and hate manufactured with a brain probe and sucked through him with a straw.

Maybe she decided he was a lost cause. Maybe this is his punishment, or his reward.

The recalcitrant angel version of heaven. A retirement home, not an afterlife. Not memories, not paradise. Ups and downs, peaks and troughs. The chance to experience freedom in a way that they never did while on active duty.

Yeah, right.

 

*

 

“What?”

Dean does know other words, but he’s hard pressed to remember them right now.

“Cas woke up, you were out.”

“And then?”

“It was like a switch being flipped. He went down, you popped up.”

“Right…”

“There’s something else.”

Dean closes his eyes, like that’ll protect him from whatever Sam says next.

 

*

 

It takes Castiel three, maybe four hours to shake off the paranoia, the nagging, burrowing fear that he’s been snatched out of time and given a manufactured life.

The last few years happened. The good, and the bad. The angels falling, the Mark of Cain, the forest. Sam’s easy friendship, and Dean’s troubled but ferocious love.

Naomi is dead, and so should be this part of heaven.

So where is he?

He doesn’t work that out until hour five.

 

*

 

“I knocked over the spell bowl, had to replace some of the ingredients.”

Dean works out where this might be heading.

“And did you get them right?” He asks brusquely, no time for politeness or pussyfooting around it.

“I – yes.  But I didn’t remember to chant over them in the panic.”

“Huh.”

“You, um, think that might have done something?”

“Fucked if I know. This was Cas’s spell, not mine.”

“Yeah well, I can’t exactly ask him, can I?”

Dean shrugs.

“You think he’s in any danger?” Sam asks.

“No. Uh, it might sound mad, but I think I’d know if he was hurt.”

“You’re still connected?”

“Yeah, but not quite the same. I can’t feel him, but I can feel where he should be.”

“I’m just gonna pretend I get what you’re saying.”

“It makes sense to me.” Dean shrugs.

“So, what do we do, wait until he wakes up?”

A sudden pang of rabid anxiety courses through Dean. It’s visceral, physical, causes him to fold over and groan.

“Dean?!” Sam lunges forward, but Dean waves him off faintly.

“I’m fine. I just, uh, really get the sense we can’t leave him like this. It ain’t gonna end well.”

“So what do we do?”

 

*

 

He doesn’t notice at first. Like all of these things, it creeps up gradually, invisible until it is obvious.

It’s getting darker in the room.

Something is blocking the light from the windows, crawling slowly over the surface.

Cas can’t be certain, but he thinks it might be green.

 

*

 

“I hate to say it, but we aren’t too hot on magic.”

“We know enough.”

“We know botched bits and patches. Enough to fight back on the common shit. Not enough to work out what the problem is here and fix it.”

“Dean—”

“But we know someone who does.”

“You can’t be talking about Crowley”

Dean shrugs, looks at Cas.

“I’ve got this sense, like a countdown clock in my head. We haven’t got time to spunk away trying to fix this by ourselves.

 

*

 

There’s a quiet chinking sound. A tiny crack appears at the edge of one of the frosted windows, spiderwebs out, into something more substantial. Cas still can’t see what exactly is causing it. He suspects, though.

 

*

 

“You want to go to _Crowley_ for help?”

“Yeah, him and Rowena.”

Sam splutters at Dean, like he’s lost his fucking mind. Maybe he has, but he knows something Sam doesn’t.

“Cas found out what the dreams are. Purgatory. It’s fucking taking me there, every night. I dunno what it wants, but if there’s anyone who knows about purgatory, it’s Crowley. And Rowena’s the best witch we got.”

“They’re our _enemies.”_ Sam is so fraught that he glosses over what Dean expects to be big news. He makes a snap assumption, that Dean already knows the rest of it, that he doesn't need to fill him in.

“Crowley has a soft spot for me.”

“We can’t trust him.”

“Well what the fuck do you suggest we do? ‘Cause Cas was right, sitting here and waiting was doing shit all to help the situation."

Sam scrubs his hand across his eyes and groans.

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Dean.”

“Yeah, well. Neither is most of the shit we do.”

“And one day that’s gonna come back and bite us in such a big way that even we don’t recover from it.”

“If it ain’t broke—”

“We won’t fucking know if it breaks, Dean. That’s the point. We’ll be dead – for good this time. Life and death might have been revolving doors for us so far, that won’t continue forever.”

“Exactly. And Cas’s time is running out. So I’m calling Crowley.”

Sam gives in.

 

*

 

Splinters of glass fall to the ground and a thin tendril of vine eases its way through. It’s moving too slowly for the normal human eye to see. Cas’s eyes are not normal human eyes.

He thinks he understands what’s going on, now.

He hopes that he doesn’t.

 

*

 

Crowley looks at his phone, answers with a thick, oily grin smeared across his face.

“Dean?”

“Crowley, look, man. I know we didn’t part on best terms, but I need your help.”

Crowley’s smile oozes off his face. Dean sounds remarkably together. He expected shaking, barely able to get the words out through gritted teeth. Some vague sounds of outward trauma, at least.

Not casual calm – slightly tired and a little tense, but not gibbering wreck territory by any means.

“What do you want, Dean?”

“Spell went wrong. We’ve tried everything, but let’s face it, we know sweet fuck all compared to you.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Dean.”

“Does that mean you’ll come?”

Crowley pretends to um and ah about it for a few moments. There’s every chance that this is a trap. If it is, that means he’s rumbled and his plan has gone tits up anyway. If it isn’t, well, it’ll be a chance to observe – see where he’s been going wrong.

Wait and see has gone on long enough. Time to give a nudge or two.

“Fine. But I’m bringing insurance. Not that I don’t trust you—”

“Yeah, that’s fine. Um. Someone who’s good with spells might help.”

“I’m good with spells.”

“Yeah, um. I know, but, y’know. I’m not suggesting that there’s anyone who’s uh, better, but maybe more um, specialised, in um, certain areas…”

“What are you suggesting, Dean?”

“Nothing, just, um—”

“Are you suggesting I bring along _my mother?”_

“No!” There’s a moment of awkward silence. “Um, maybe?”

“Don’t trust me, Winchester?”

“I do, it’s just…”

“I’ll be at the bunker’s front gate within an hour. And I’ll bring an associate of my choosing, not yours.”

“Thanks, Crowley. I owe you one.”

“You owe me _several._ ”

He hangs up, stares at the phone contemplatively for a few moments, and then hits the second number on his speed dial.

The call nearly rings out, but eventually she deigns to answer.

“Mother, I need a favour.”

 

*

 

More tendrils start to poke through. They’re all facing a particular way, gravitating towards Cas as though he is the sun.

He supposes he is, for these purposes.

He is a source of power.

A significant one, one already painted from the inside with the black taint of purgatory.

Everything leaves a mark.

He gained his when he tore a hole between dimensions, swallowed all the souls of purgatory greedily for himself.

He wonders where Dean got his.

 

*

 

“So, how much are we telling him?” Sam asks.

“Just the spell gone wrong stuff.”

“And if he wants to know why you were mind melded together?”

“Blame it on kinky sex games.”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“Okay, so, stories straight…”

 

*

 

The vines are weaving closer, and there’s nothing Cas can do to escape them. The sanctuary his unconscious mind attempted to build for him has backfired. Cuffs are all very well to keep him immobile when the danger is far away, stop him wandering towards it. They are less helpful when the rabid dogs are running freely through the halls of his castle, getting closer moment by moment.

He wonders idly why his subconscious chose a representation of Naomi’s office of torture to make its stand against this invasion. Thinks he probably shouldn’t delve too deeply into the psychology of that.

 

*

 

 “So.” Rowena purrs, as Crowley frowns sceptically at Dean. “Explain to me exactly how you two got yourselves into this situation.”

Dean runs a hand through his hair, looks sheepish.

“We uh, we did a mind meld spell, me and Cas.”

“Why?” Crowley asks, suspicious.

“You don’t want to know.” Sam cuts in.

“We told Sam it was kinky sex stuff.” Dean cuts in. “But it wasn’t. It was to see if Cas’s presence could help tame the Mark.”

Sam’s surprised look is genuine. Which, he guesses, is what Dean was going for.

“It’s been bad. Nightmares and injuring myself. We thought this might help, but there were dangers.”

“Which they didn’t tell me about. I had to find out for myself.” Sam slips just the right amount of venom into his tone.

“Huh.” Rowena conveys just how little she cares with one syllable and a shrug, instead choosing to poke and prod at Castiel, testing his pulse, lifting his eyelids.

His eyes shine, grace-blue, underneath the eyelids.

“I found out the risks, stupidly thought they didn’t know, that they were going in blind, so I made the counter spell.”

“You did _not_.” Rowena sneers.

“Well, yeah. I dropped the bowl, spilled half the ingredients. I replaced them, but I forgot to spell the new ones.”

 

*

 

A vine brushes gently across his leg, tugs at his trouser leg like it wants access to his flesh. Cas kicks out, snaps the fragile end of the stem.

Blackish sap leaks and dribbles out onto the floor, and then stops. The wound glows red, self-cauterises.

Cas gulps.

 

*

 

“Hmm.” Rowena doesn’t ask any more questions, carries on poking and prodding at Cas’s prone form. There’s something she isn’t being told, but that’s fine. She can work it out, and when she does, no-one else will know that she knows.

There’s a third factor that no one has bothered to tell her about operating here. A complication. 

The spell that Sam cast _did_ split Dean and Cas back apart, mostly. A little too much, in Cas’s case. If she was trying to describe it to an idiotic half skilled dabbler in magic (by which she means her son) she’d liken it to ripping a piece of paper in half along a fold, sometimes the two sides come away even, sometimes the divide is jagged, one side ends up with a lump taken out of it.

The ‘lump’ Cas is missing, that vulnerability, something else is doing its best to fill in the gap. He needs to be attended to quickly, lest they risk bringing something nasty back with him. 

Lest whatever it is eats him up.

 

*

 

The tendrils reroute after that, aim higher up, where he can’t defend himself from them. He knows where they’re going. They’re after the centre of him. They’re after his grace.

And he knows why, it nips at the corner of his mind, nebulous and half formed, but there.  It’s just out of his reach. Everything here is hazy, he needs to escape, before it gets what it wants, before it harvests him and leaves him a husk.

If it leaves him at all.

The denizens of purgatory have worn him like a puppet before. Maybe that’s their endgame this time too.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

 

*

 

“So, Dean.” Crowley asks. “How’ve you been feeling?”

“Um. Y’know. Stressed. Mark of Cain ain’t easy to live with.”

“No. I imagine not.”

Crowley opens his mouth to delve further, pry and get some answers, when of course Rowena interrupts.

“We need to move fast if you want to bring him back whole.”

Dean’s attention rips away from Crowley, focuses entirely and intently on Rowena.

“What do you need?”

She reels off the list of ingredients, and Dean jumps to attention, dashes off with her in tow.

Crowley takes the chance to sidle up to Sam, see if he can learn anything valuable this way. Dean is a dead end. Perhaps Crowley’s spell hasn’t worked. Perhaps the seed came unrooted, isn’t even in him at all. Unfortunately there’s no subtle way to ask him to take his shirt off in company.

“Dean seems well.”

Sam snorts before he can help himself, recovers and reigns back.

“He’s been better.”

“Oh?”

“The Mark, y’know.”

“Hmm. Is he still having nightmares?”

“Yeah, but I mean, he was a demon for a bit. We weren’t expecting anything different.”

Sam turns away, a clear dismissal, and Crowley hums contemplatively. Perhaps he did what he swore he never would. Perhaps he underestimated Dean Winchester.

When he gets back to hell he’ll have to amplify the spell. He has all the souls of the damned at his command. He can probably spare a few for a spell this important.

Dean _will_ break.

 

*

 

Cas can feel his grace recoiling and shrinking inside his shell, burying itself as deep in his centre as possible. It doesn’t like this any more than he does.

He summons up all of his remaining verve, focuses on dismantling his surroundings and freeing himself. The castle has fallen; his only chance now is to run.

He closes his eyes, focuses the entirety of his considerable internal might and determination on wishing this world out of view.

He cracks open one eye.

Still here.

Oh well. It was worth a shot.

 

*

 

Rowena assembles her spell gracefully and with care. There are no hidden traps or tricks. It’s very unlike her. She’s almost ashamed of herself. She’s casting the spell that was asked of her, with no immediate gain to herself.

Still, she’s not spent her time idle. She’s been boning up on the Winchesters, and from her disdain has grown an understanding. Of those who find themselves on their radar, those who stand against them, end up dead. So do those who stand together with them. Those who flit in and out, occasionally assist, keep the Winchesters in their debt but don’t grow close. Those are the people who survive.

She’d have this talk with Crowley, if she gave a shit for his wellbeing. He’s too close, craves their affection and attention. It won’t end well for him.

In the mere minutes since she left with Dean to procure ingredients, Castiel appears to have deteriorated considerably, enough to make Rowena nervous.

If she fails here, she might pay with her life. It might not be her fault, that doesn’t mean they’ll believe that.

She opens her mouth to give some sort of pre-emptive explanation, in the vague hope that they’ll understand, should it all go wrong. Dean shouts her down.

“Hurry! We don’t have time!” He sounds frantic, terrified. So, he can tell. Interesting. There’s some magic in him too, and it’s nothing to do with the botched spell his younger brother cast.

Rowena summons up all of her extensive skill and experience, uses it to try and save the life of someone she should despise.

 

*

 

Cas can’t see the vine, but he can feel it at his throat, pressing gently against. He swallows, feels his Adams apple push against something slightly sharp.

A thorn. Small now, but getting larger by the second. He has a mere few moments before it punctures his flesh, sucks out his grace for some foul purpose.

For the first time in a long time, Castiel prays. But he doesn’t pray to God, or to his angelic brethren. He prays to Dean Winchester.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a good job this chapter was written last night and only needed editing today, because I've got fucking RSI or something v painful in my elbow so I'm having to type everything left handed and it is SO FUCKING SLOW. If it clears up over the weekend, you'll have another chapter next week, but if it comes to thursday and nothing, blame all the lovely people donating to the charity I work for and creating more work for me. (we're only 3 days behind on our processing now, which considering where we were at the start of the week is HUGE progress haaaaa)


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the brief hiatus. There might be another one to come because my DCBB posting date is the 6th of November and my beta says she's nearly done with it (i am excite), so depending on how much work it needs, I might not have a chance to work on this. Don't think of it as losing a week of this fic, think of it as very soon gaining 120k of well edited and actually planned out not just made up on the spot goliath.

Cas feels pinprick sharpness at his throat, and knows that his prayer hasn’t been answered. He asked too much, he always does. He whispers a quiet apology to Dean, for whatever is about to befall him as a result of this, swallows and tries to control the shake in his hands as he feels the cut deepen.

The hollow thorn reaches grace and Cas would laugh, if that wouldn’t drive it deeper in, get the job done quicker. The transfer of information is instant and total. An unintended consequence of touching pure divine essence. Locked up, somewhere in that white glow, is the memory of omniscience. It wants, it needs to know, sucks down information like a sinkhole.

Cas knows everything now, what the forest is going to use his grace for, what will happen to Dean as a consequence.

He also knows that this procedure will kill him. This isn’t a straightforward draining of grace, slit his throat, catch what leaks out and leave him human. Purgatory wants it all, will scour him to atoms trying to sift it out. Total annihilation, and if that leaves no witness to get in its way, well, so much the better.

Cas knows what’s happening, and he is going to die before he can tell anyone.

So it goes.

He’s not going to die the way Purgatory wants him to, though.

Just because in his hand is where he usually manifests his angel blade, doesn’t mean it’s the only place that he can.

He could for example, if he thought about it, if he wanted to, manifest it say somewhere in the region of his chest. Point down. 

It takes a little more effort, but it can be done.

A good death self-inflicted isn’t the worst way to go. And besides, he’s had quite a few bad ends recently. He thinks it’s about time for another heroes death.

*

 

Rowena screams, and there’s blood in her eyes and on her tongue. It drips down her cheeks and out of her mouth, pools on her chin and falls to the floor.

Dean is shaking, teeth rattling and chattering. Sam has white knuckled fists clenched tight.

Crowley yawns, looks at his watch. An affectation. He’s a crossroads demon, some might argue _the_ crossroads demon, the passing of time is something he instinctively understands.  He just wants everyone to understand how little he cares about Cas and his mother.

Rowena pinches the back of his neck and he yelps, grumbles mutinously but still reaches out to hold her hand, adds his strength to hers.

He nearly folds over with the shock, the power of whatever has Cas tight in its grip. They have been lied to. This was a trap, that’s something much older and nastier than a binding spell gone awry. That’s a primal force and it’s going to tear them apart.

Rowena says the final words of the spell, glances around the room dazedly. Her eyes are welled, overflowing with red – they look so alike, mother and son. One with eyes of hellsmoke, and the other paying the price for her magic in blood.

Crowley slumps to the floor, rests his face in his hands and groans. Rowena’s eyes roll into the back of her head and she crumples in a heap. No one makes a move to rescue her. Of course not.

There’s silence. One beat, two beats, three beats, four.

There’s a red spot on Cas’s neck, getting bigger. A drop of blood trails from it to the bed and then the flow thickens, and Dean can see the white-blue of grace sparking underneath it. The white-blue of _Cas._ They forget, but that’s what he is. Jimmy Novak’s body is just a shell. That’s Cas, exposed to the air, visible now.

What have they done?

 

*

 

It’s harder to kill yourself with your own blade than Cas imagined. The mind fights back. It’s trying to rebel against itself, against its own better judgement. Cas shuts that down with a grunt, pulls in a deep breath and—

and feels fingertips brush his neck.

He opens his eyes and it’s so unlikely, so impossible, that for a moment he thinks his first guess when he woke up was right, this is Naomi pulling the strings and spiralling him into madness for the sheer petty minded revenge of it.

He’s in the bunker.

Really there. He’s awake, and there’s Dean and Sam, looking fraught and tired but very much alive.

“Cas.” Dean chokes out. “Your neck.”

Cas lifts his hand up, touches the wound. Slight, but there. He can feel his grace sparking and fizzing under his fingertips.

“Fire.” He croaks, and Dean and Sam share a confused glance. “Lighter!” He insists, louder, more urgently.

Dean fumbles in his pockets, finds a book of matches and hands it over, nearly dropping it.

Cas lights one and holds it to his neck, ignores Dean’s yelp at the sound and smell of sizzling flesh.

“What the fuck did you do that for?”

“I had to make sure I hadn’t brought it back.”

“It?”

“No time. We need to find Crowley.”

Crowley, who had been inching his way on hands and knees towards the door in the hope of escaping unnoticed, kicks himself to his feet and dives forwards.

His legs don’t support him, and he ends up back on the floor, with Sam pressing Ruby’s knife into his back.

“What do you need him for, Cas?”

“This is his fault.”

“What?” Crowley tries for incredulity. “I wasn’t the one who decided to glue my brain to someone else's without reading the warning label!”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Crowley swallows nervously, busted.

“I don’t know what you mean.” He tries again.

“I don’t know how you did it, or what you were trying to do, but all of this is your fault.”

“All of what?” Crowley repeats.

“The seed of purgatory planted in Dean,  trying to take him over.”

“What seed - I don't - you think I - what?” Crowley tries for wounded incredulity.

“I know it was you. You were so woven into the spell I could practically taste you.” Cas pulls a disgusted face, like he’s considering bathing in salt to get rid of the taint.

Crowley doesn’t attempt to turn the comment suggestive, goes for deflection instead.

“I was helping with the spell to pull you out, that must have been what you felt.”

Cas moves so fast he blurs, lifts Crowley up and pins him against the wall, eyes glowing white.

“Tell me what you did, and how, or you don’t walk away.”

“I’ve got nothing to tell.” Crowley sneers. He’s confident, knows Cas won’t kill him while he needs information.

He’s underestimating just how furious Cas is. He manifests his angel blade, lunges to stab Crowley, is only stopped by Dean.

“Hey, hey. Cool it.”

“Thank you, Dean.” Crowley says with a smug little grin. Maybe some of his plan worked after all.

Dean punches him square on the nose, and Crowley realises Dean wasn’t coming to his defence. He’s got the same fury burning behind his eyes. He wants answers, but just as much if not more, he wants violence. He'll take whatever comes first.

Crowley considers. They aren’t going to believe him if he lies. Maybe he can hedge? But no, whatever Cas saw when he was out, whatever was done to him, he knows most already, enough that he’d be able to verify. Best for Crowley if he just tells the truth and attempts to wiggle out that way. After all, he did just save Cas. He has some capital here.

“Okay, you got me. I cast a spell on Dean, while he was a demon. One that wouldn’t take effect unless he regained his humanity, unless I decided he needed a little guidance.”

“Guidance?” Sam asks. He’s been very quiet, that ferocious brain of his pounding along at a hundred miles an hour, bouncing from hypothesis to conclusion and not liking any of it.

“When he _betrayed_ me, used me to kill Cain and then gave the Blade to Castiel here, I activated the spell. Fed a little magic into the splinter of purgatory bark I had one of his conquests dig in his back. Nothing serious, and nothing that could harm a human too much. Just enough to give him nightmares, break him down a little, make him long for the carefree days of the Deanmon.”

“That can’t be all you did.” Cas growls.

“I promise, it was. A little torture is the best kind of foreplay. I wanted him weakened, pliable. Ready to return to me. I just gave him a few little nightmares to soften him up.”

Dean growls, angry at being talked at like he isn’t here. Cas rests a hand on his arm, attempts to still him.

“What you gave Dean was a direct psychic link to purgatory; enough that it manages to pull him there night after night and kill him.”

“Impossible.” Crowley’s tone is dismissive. “Neither purgatory nor my spell is that powerful. If it had a prior claim on him, perhaps. Maybe if he was a bloody dragon, for instance.” He says flippantly.

“Or if he was a vampire.” Sam says.

“Yes, well done Sam, we can all name supernatural creatures.” Crowley sneers.

“No. I mean, he was a vampire. For a bit.”

“What?” Crowley isn’t feigning incredulity this time.

“He, uh. Got turned. We cured him.”

“I didn’t know you could.” Crowley mutters.

“Yeah, well. You can.”  Dean says gruffly.

“Interesting.”  Crowley narrows his eyes, considers it. “It would have to be a strong prior claim, in order to gain that power over him.”

“We spent a year there.” Cas adds.

“Maybe, but that still wouldn’t explain—”

“Sam, you said certain magic stresses make you more vulnerable to others.” Dean adds, in a grudging tone. Like admitting that the Mark of Cain, the embodiment  of evil,  is a strain on him is akin to admitting he’s weak and pathetic.

Sam gets that glint in his eye, starts to speak at a pace only creatures outside the concept of time can understand, and then repeats himself slower.

“You were so busy fighting off the Mark that your body or soul or whatever didn’t notice the other thing trying to take root—” Dean groans at the accidental pun “— until it was too late, until it had enough of a hold on you—”

“—that the Mark and your soul have to fight it off together.”

They all turn to look at Cas.

“We have time, now that I know Crowley isn’t going to run off and feed more power to the spell.”

Crowley gulps, guilty as charged.

“It trapped me in a limbo world, touched my grace. A mistake – it didn’t seem to realise how hungry grace is when it comes to information.”

He trails off, doesn’t say anything for a few moments, flashes back to the room. He doesn’t realise he’s frozen until Dean taps him on the shoulder.

“You okay, buddy?”

“Yes. Fine.” He’s not, but there isn’t time for that. “As I was saying, the nightmares, they have two purposes. The first is to weaken Dean. His human soul and the power of hell are enough to keep purgatory leashed, it's only when one of them falls that it can gain a greater hold on him.”

“So it was either remove the Mark, or kill Dean?”

“Yes, the latter of which proved much easier to do, over and over again.”

Sam snaps his fingers.

“That’s why the Mark was bringing you back as a human.” He turns to Dean. “It knew if it had sole control of your body, purgatory would take over and it’d be left with nothing.” He turns back to Cas for confirmation.

Cas nods, gives Dean a long, searching look. He hasn’t said anything for a while, and Cas isn’t sure whether he’s in shock. He looks a little fraught, wide eyed and distressed, but not checking out entirely. Not yet.

Crowley looks sceptical.

“You want me to believe that purgatory is so strong it can only be matched by earth and hell working together?”

“Purgatory is older than both of those realms combined. It’s the cage God created for the leviathan, and you doubt its strength?” Cas asks.

Crowley shrugs. Sceptical, but whatever. He doesn’t want to argue too much in case he reminds everyone that this is maybe possibly slightly could be considered his fault.

“You said there are two reasons. Two reasons for the nightmares and the forest.” Dean speaks up again, and his voice is rough but unwavering.

“The second is - was - a trap for me.” Cas admits.

“Why would it want you?” Sam asks, not meaning to sound as dismissive of Cas as he perhaps comes across.

“It wants my grace. Grace is incredibly powerful, even the slightly lessened version I have at the moment—” _interesting_ , Crowley files that away for possible later exploitation “–and because of some of my past, less than savoury activities, my grace already has a slight taint. It’s the perfect source.”

“Source for what?” Sam asks, even though he thinks he knows. Even though he’s well ahead of the explanation. Some things are so horrible that you need to hear someone else say them, confirm them, before you’ll allow yourself to believe them.

“It wants my grace so it can overcome Dean, rip him in two and turn him into a portal between worlds.”

“Shit.” Is Crowley’s eloquent summation of affairs.

“What else?” Dean asks, because he knows Cas. Can read every fleeting micro expression that crosses his face. There is more, and there is worse.

“It wouldn’t kill you. It would, in fact make you immortal. You’d be left to bare witness as every single foul thing, from leviathan to shapeshifter to Eve poured out of the pit that used to be your body and laid waste to the earth.”

He stops, but there’s more.

“What else, Cas?” Dean grinds out, trying not to be angry, trying not to begrudge Cas for wanting to protect him.

“Everything that came out would be connected to you. You’d bear witness to every single blow, every single murder and feast and ravagement. Chained to each foul monster by a weaker version of the connection that purgatory uses to bind you to the body that it creates for you, in your dreams.

“Except you wouldn’t have any control over these bodies. You’d be imprisoned in the heads of a billion different monsters, every single thing that purgatory saw fit to spit out, as they destroyed every last thing you loved.”

“I won’t ask this again, Cas. What else?” Dean hisses out through clenched teeth.

Cas rubs a hand over his eyes, a stress response, not because he has an actual headache.

“Maybe the trauma would drive you mad, forced to live out a billion different consciences at once. Maybe it wouldn’t, that’d probably be worse. Because that kind of link isn’t passive. You wouldn’t just be forced to witness all of that violence. You’d feel like you were the one perpetrating it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UH OH. Did you think that was gonna be it, something as mundane as just using Dean to open purgatory? You should realise by now that every time you think I've hit peak angst and am going to start tailing off, you are probably wrong ;P 
> 
> Too far? Not far enough? What do you think? ;D
> 
> Now I'm away to watch this week's spn. WAS IT GOOD, SHOULD I BE AFRAID?


	27. Chapter 27

There’s silence for a few seconds. A long, stretching, hideous few seconds in which even Crowley has the decency to look fazed. And then Sam claps his hands together – all stubborn business and okay that was a pretty big bombshell but it’s had its few minutes and now we’re going to rise above it.

“So, how do we fix this?”

He looks to Cas, ancient, knowing, the one who figured this all out, and the one who’s going to explain to them how to fix it. He knows. He _must._

“I..” Cas stutters to a halt, tries again. “I don’t think we do.”

“You don’t know?” Sam swallows around the lump in his throat, but he forges on ahead anyway. “Okay, that’s fine. We’ve still got some time, right? Research. That’s all we need, we know what we’re facing, we can—”

“That’s not what he said.” Dean rasps.

His voice might be a bit rough, but it’s the only thing about him that is at the moment. He doesn’t look pale, and he doesn’t look shell-shocked.

He doesn’t look like someone who’s just been told that they’re going to spend the rest of their life acting out murders they have no desire to commit.

He looks resigned. He looks like someone who expected this all along. Like this was the lot cast for him at birth, something he’s known all about and been building up to for all the years he’s been breathing. Like this is his worth, the prescribed penance for his sins.

“There must be a way out.” Crowley muses. “Portal spells are usually pretty easy to break.”

Cas fixes him with a look, weary, irritated, furious. Just about every negative emotion it’s possible to blend together in one facial expression.

“How do you stop a portal spell, Crowley?”

Understanding clicks in Crowley’s head.

“You kill the sacrifice outside the requirements of the spell.”

“Or?”

“You kill the person casting the spell.”

“Or?”

“I get it.” He snaps. “Killing Dean won’t break his connection to his body, so it won’t break the spell. We’d have to kill him, and the Mark and the claim simultaneously. And seeing as you lot can’t even work out how to remove the Mark, much less destroy it _and_ a seed of purgatory at the same time, that’s a no go. Obviously, we can’t kill Purgatory, because at this point, full of all those monster souls, even God couldn’t do that. And we can’t break the spell because—” He stops, eyes darting side to side as he scours his brain for the information. “Actually, I don’t know why we can’t break the spell. If you’d care to enlighten me?”

“Because the King of Hell has been feeding his blood and toil and magic and demonic soul into it, allowing it to grow untamed and unchecked for long enough that it’s self-powering.”

“Ah. Okay. That.” He has the grace to look sheepish.

“So what _can_ we do?” Sam asks, refusing to let go, to believe that this really is it. End of the world, version who the fuck even knows by this point

“We could perform a mercy kill.” Cas says bitterly, refusing to meet Dean’s eye, refusing to even talk _to_ him, instead of about him. “Kill Dean at the last moment before it took over, turn him into a demon. It’d still rip him apart, still turn him into a portal, still make him live every murder. But this way he might actually enjoy the experience instead of suffering eternally.”

“You have a fucking shit sense of humour, Cas.” Dean growls.

“That wasn’t a joke.” Cas tells his shoes.

“You can’t seriously tell me there’s no solution?” Sam fumbles.

“What about if I flipped the Mark to someone else and then killed myself in a way that doesn’t fit the ritual?” Dean asks.

He’s lived with the Mark, he knows the hideous toll it exacts on the person who bears it, and under no other circumstances would he even consider this as an option – if it were just his sanity or his life at stake, he’d say fuck it. But it’s not. It’s the entire world, once again. Once again Dean has to make a choice between doing something hideous, and letting something even worse happen.

At this point, maybe death is the best option for him. He’s so fucking tired of doing bad to stop worse.

“It wouldn’t work.”

“Why not?”

“It takes a few seconds to transfer the Mark, by the time it left your arm, the spell would have already ripped you apart.”

“So what are our options?” Sam asks, because there are always options. Always.

“We could try a ritual purification.” Cas says tonelessly.

“And would that work?” Dean calls his bullshit.

“No.”

“What would?”

“Nothing.”

“Can’t you, I dunno, teleport me to the centre of the sun? Dump me there and crisp me up. Fuck it, if purgatory wants to open a portal there, it’s goddamn welcome to try.”

“Even if I wanted to subject you to a literal eternity burning at the centre of the sun, I can’t teleport.” Cas says morosely.

“Crowley?” Dean asks.

“I can’t teleport to the sun.”

“What about if I made a deal?”

“Wouldn’t work. No demon is allowed to make a deal that would result in its death.”

“You’re King of Hell. Change the rules.” Dean spits.

“It’s not a matter of rules. It’s a matter of the fundamental fabric of hell. That is the way contracts work, in the same way that gravity works on earth, and nothing works in heaven.”

He can’t resist the jibe. No-one bites.

“So who _does_ have the power to put me somewhere I won’t do any harm?”

“NASA.” Crowley answers snidely, and Sam, of all people, Sam Winchester, loses his temper. He lunges forwards, lashes out at Crowley. Crowley doesn’t have the strength yet to smoke away, or go the old fashioned way. He tries to duck, fails and is once again at the mercy of a furious Winchester.

“Now, now boys.” Rowena slurs from the floor, sitting up woozily and wiping at her bloodstained face. “You’re all thinking about this the wrong way.”

Sam stops punching Crowley, doesn’t let go.

“How long have you been conscious?” Crowley asks.

“About three seconds. Stop asking stupid questions, Fergus. Now, do you want my help or not?”

“You’ve been unconscious, you don’t even know what the problem is.” Cas says dismissively.

She snorts. “I’m a witch, sweetheart. I don’t need to be conscious to hear what you’re saying. Blah blah portal, blah unbreakable spell.”

“So it is unbreakable?” Dean asks.

“With that attitude, yes.” She hits back, getting woozily to her feet, swaying a little before finding her balance. “Now, does someone want to get me a stiff drink and something to sit on?”

Cas strides out of the room, returns shortly with a chair and a cloudy looking glass of whiskey. Rowena sits with a flourish, downs the drink in one. She grimaces.

“Cheap and nasty. Fitting for the environs, I suppose.”

“Rowena!” Sam snaps. He’s let go of Crowley now, who’s rubbing his face and glaring mutinously, not quite able to heal himself.

“Okay, okay. Keep your wig on.” Rowena breathes deep, exhales dramatically. “You’re all thinking of this as a straightforward spell. A normal portal. Impregnate the sacrifice with the essence of the dimension you’re opening a door to, chant some funny words, spill his blood and then pop, open door, at no cost to the caster.” She pauses for effect, because she can, because these idiots are hanging off her every word and she does so enjoy being the centre of attention. “This is nothing like that. Firstly the caster didn’t even mean to make the spell, he fumbled it into being by accident.” She shoots a derisive glance at her son. “Now, what does that tell us?”

“The intent wasn’t there.” Cas says.

“No. The intent was there, it just didn’t come from the caster.”

“So the intent came from purgatory?”

“Yes. The intent came from the dimension. Very strange. Dimensions don’t often get ideas in their heads.” The line sounds throwaway, but Dean isn’t watching Rowena, he’s watching Cas. He notices the little half flinch at those words. “So, we have the intent from the spell resting somewhere different from usual. What else do we have, we have a caster who feeds his own life and blood and flesh into a spell that shouldn’t require it.”

Sam and Dean don’t know what she’s talking about. Crowley thinks he does, but he’s wrong. If he knew the line of thought his mother was ploughing, he’d be long out of the door.

“We have a caster who is bound into the spell.” Cas says.

“Excellent. Brains and looks, you really are the whole package. If your boyfriend does end up being ripped apart into an evil dimensional portal, I’ll be more than happy to console you.” She winks, and Cas ignores her. She’s trying to get a rise and he won’t let her.

When it becomes clear he’s not going to react she sighs, carries on.

“So, we have the intent of the spell lying outside the one who cast it, we have the original caster of the spell feeding himself a little more into the enchantment every day. The third element, meanwhile, is proving resistant, submitting slowly, but refusing to do so outright. Where does that leave us?”

“Fucking confused.” Dean gripes, casting a sideways glance at Cas.

“Yes, well, darling, I’d say that’s not rare for you.”

“Rowena.” Cas warns. He’s frowning, but Dean doesn’t think it’s from a lack of understanding.

Rowena rolls her eyes.

“It leaves us with a spell outside the control of the one who cast it.”

“We already know that.” Sam replies slowly. There’s something he doesn’t understand here. Something subtle and nuanced that Cas and Rowena know and are being deliberately obtuse about revealing.

Cas’s eyes flash blue and the door slams shut, sparks flying. Rowena stands, all trace of exhaustion gone now, washed away by the magical salve Cas had mixed into her whiskey.

She lifts up her hand, hisses out something unintelligible and Crowley flies across the room, finds himself pinned to the wall. He kicks and struggles, attempts to smoke out. Cas clamps a hand over his mouth, pushes the smoke back in and burns a binding link onto the flesh of his forehead.

“You’re not going anywhere, Fergus.” Rowena says.

He still doesn’t quite understand what’s going on, eyes flicking from his mother to Cas.

“I made a mistake! I didn’t know the spell would end up like this! You think I _want_ all of purgatory on earth? What’s the point in being a demon if there are no humans left to torture!”

Rowena laughs.

“You’re a terrible witch, darling. Botching the spell, understandable, if not excusable. There were unknown factors, I grant. You couldn’t be expected to know that Dean’s Winchester’s soul was claimed so many ways, that you were allowing one very dormant part a foothold.

“What is ridiculous is that I’ve explained all of this, and you still don’t get it. The angel knows, he’s not a witch, but he managed to put it together.” She uses her best patronising teacher voice.

“Put what together?!” Crowley yells.

“Dean Winchester is not the sacrifice. Dean Winchester is the portal.”

“What does that mean?”

“You weren’t listening, Crowley.” Cas says. “I said purgatory was going to tear Dean apart, I also said it wasn’t going to kill him.”

“What has that got to do with anything?” Crowley shrieks.

“Sacrifice is a broad term, you can sacrifice your future, you can sacrifice your hopes, or a limb even.” Rowena purrs. “In this case, however, the meaning of sacrifice is achingly specific. There needs to be a death to open the portal. If Dean is going to survive this, live on as the portal and suffer eternally, then who is the blood sacrifice – who’s life will the spell claim to kick-start the final phase, when it’s knit through Dean’s veins entirely, settled in and ready to pull him apart?”

Crowley finally understands.

“Me. I’m the sacrifice.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting this up was like pulling fucking teeth but I persevered just for you ;P Didn't read the banner properly and assumed the update was happening at 5pm EST so thought I had ages. MY BAD. Never even heard of UTC.

“Yes Fergus, well done. Even if I did have to practically draw you a diagram.”

Rowena doesn’t seem at all fazed by the knowledge that her son is, at some point in the not too distant future, going to be consumed for a spell to rip a hole between dimensions. She sounds more annoyed at the inconvenience than genuinely upset.

“So what are we going to do about it?” Crowley asks, from where he’s still held, pinned to the wall.

Cas looks at the floor, Rowena doesn’t. She looks Crowley straight in the eye, shrugs pragmatically.

“Well we’re going to have to kill you, of course.”

“What?!” Crowley shrieks.

“Oh come on, now you’re just being wilfully dense.” Rowena rolls her eyes. “You said it yourself, to break a portal spell you need to kill the sacrifice – that’s you, sweetheart –  outside the requirements of the spell. Easy-peasy.”

“But—”

“Of course, we don’t know what the requirements of the spell are at the moment.”

Crowley doesn’t relax. That’s not reassuring information.

“Do you have to _kill_ me? There’s got to be another way to break the spell.”

“Not one that I can think of.” Rowena says with a shrug. “Anyone else here got a suggestion?”

No-one answers.

“No choice darling, sorry.”

“I’m your _son!_ ”

“Yes, you are. But unfortunately for you I’d rather watch you die than see the whole planet devoured by monsters. Don’t take it personally. Very fond of my own skin. I’d offer up anyone else in a heartbeat.”

Crowley isn’t impressed, as you wouldn’t be in his situation. “That’s not going to help me when I’m _DEAD!_ ”

“Look, Fergus. You’ve had a long run, longer than most. Accept your fate, move on. Think of it as an adventure - who knows where demons go when they die.”

“Oblivion.” Cas helpfully supplies.

“Stop scaring the wee thing. Can’t you see he’s upset.” Rowena admonishes.

“I WILL NOT LET YOU KILL ME!” Crowley doesn’t sound particularly scared, frothing with rage, perhaps. Scared, not so much.

Rowena snaps her fingers and Crowley cries out in pain, but that doesn’t stop him, just gives him something else to yell about.

“YOU’VE JUST SAID YOU’RE GOING TO KILL ME. YOU THINK _THAT_ IS GOING TO CALM ME DOWN?”

Rowena groans, slaps her hands over her eyes and mutters something about ungrateful brats.

Dean steps over to Crowley, still shouting and railing against his fate, and decks him. It doesn’t achieve quite the desired result. Now there are two people in pain instead of just one. Dean shakes his hand and grimaces.

“What did you think that was gonna achieve?” Sam asks, genuinely curious.

Dean shoots him a dirty look.

“I forgot, okay. Back when, y’know—” they always skirt around Dean’s brief period as a demon, never quite address it “— if he was pissing me off I could just, uh, tap him out.”

“YOU WILL NOT TAP ME OUT!” Crowley roars. He’s gone full tantrum mode, kicking his legs and screaming.

No-one is fooled. Crowley has been known to throw hissy fits, true, but never when it matters. He’s doing this to try and make them underestimate him, so that he can pull off some convoluted escape plan and whisk away with his life intact.

After all, he’s a demon. Sharing the world with all the monstrous souls of purgatory wouldn’t be ideal, but it’d be better than dead.

Cas finally decides he’s had enough of Crowley’s antics, knocks him out with a tap on the forehead. Sam shoots Dean a look – _that’s_ how you knock out a demon. Dean determinedly ignores said look.

“So.” Dean says slowly. “All those revelations, flipping from we’re all doomed to miraculous get out clause—”

“Not a miraculous get out clause.” Rowena interrupts. “A slight chance. To kill Crowley outside the terms of the sacrifice we need to know what those terms are. I don’t know them – do you?”

“No.”

“So how do we find them out?” Sam presses impatiently.

“We have to venture into the darkest bowels of hell.” Rowena puts on her most campishly halloweeny voice. “Luckily being the King’s mother has its perks so it won’t be too hard to get down there. I’m taking the angel with me, we’ll be back soonish. Don’t let my idiot son get the better of you and escape – fate of the world and all that nonsense.” She waves her hands theatrically.

Sam finally realises what’s annoying him so much about the whole situation. She’s not taking it seriously. None of them are, except maybe him and Crowley. Dean appears to not give a shit, just standing there and taking it. Cas is shuffling and quiet, none of the usual determination and fury he brings to trying to save Dean, and Rowena is prancing around like it’s a great big fucking joke.

Sam doesn’t want to spend his irritation on Dean or Cas – because fuck knows what imminent breakdown they’re damming up with their discordant behaviour – so he goes for the easy target instead.

“You think this is a fucking joke?” He snarls at Rowena. “If we fuck this up the world is going to end, Dean is going to be stuck in a torture worse than hell, and you can’t even take it seriously?”

He doesn’t lunge for her, just about content to take out his rage verbally instead. She’s the best hope they’ve got right now, but fuck, if she wasn’t, she’d have a blade through her heart.

She doesn’t rise to his fury, meets it instead with mild detachment.

“We all deal with our traumas in different ways, Samuel. I’m dealing with my probably very imminent death by finding it amusing. Gallows humour, sweetheart.”

“It’s disrespectful!”

“Perhaps. Now, are you going to let me go? Because not to sound trite and cliché, but the sooner we get this over with the better. The longer this spell is left to fester, the worse it will get. Probably.” She adds with a facetious shrug.

“And what’re we supposed to do while you’re gone? Just sit here?!” Sam’s tone is sharp and incredulous.

“Guard Crowley.” Cas says. “Make sure he doesn’t escape. If he does, we’re all dead, and…” He trails off.

“And I’m spending the rest of eternity plugged into monster Oculus Rift. You can say it, Cas.” Dean snaps.

“Dean—”

“Don’t, Cas.”

Cas walks over to stand by Dean, takes one of his hands. Dean resists the urge to flinch away, pull his hand out of Cas’s grip. He feels so fucking dirty, unclean. Disgusting. Here he is about to destroy everything. And they might not say it’s Dean’s fault, but yeah. The end of the world is always at his feet somehow. It happens this many times, you stop believing it’s coincidence and start thinking there’s something fundamentally fucked up about you.

Cas brings his other hand up to Dean’s face, brushes his thumb gently against the stubble trying to grow there.

“We’ll fix this. I promise.”

“Not what you were saying earlier.” Dean wants to believe him, but less than a half hour ago he had a very different story. He was offering to fucking _mercy kill_ Dean so he wouldn’t have to suffer too much.

“I didn’t have all the information.”

“Huh.”

“I hadn’t given up on you, I wouldn’t. I just had a – a moment.”

“You’re just fucking Rousseau in a trench coat, yeah, I remember the whole let’s get drunk and wait to die crap from the apocalypse.”

“It passes.”

“Yeah, well, next time keep your pessimism to yourself.”

“We _will_ fix this.” Cas says, and there’s such monumental conviction in his tone that it gnaws at the doubt muzzily trying to settle in Dean’s gut.

He hasn’t had the time to process any of this yet. Still doesn’t quite believe it’s going to happen, never mind that they’re going to stop it.

He’s headed for the mother of all fucking freakouts, and he’s vaguely aware of it. The looming storm on the horizon that you see coming, but that still somehow takes you by surprise when the first boom of thunder rings out.

Cas rests his forehead against Dean’s, ignores Rowena’s impatient tutting and takes a few moments, breathing in and out until they’re in sync.

“It’s going to be okay, Dean.” Cas says, as he pulls away.

Dean nods slowly, watches as Cas steps over to Rowena, puts a hand on her shoulder and they both vanish.

“You okay, man?” Sam asks, cautiously.

“I dunno.”

“You don’t know?”

“It’s a lot to take in.”

Sam nods slowly. Okay, yeah. He gets that.

“We should get Crowley somewhere safe.” Dean says, when it becomes clear that Sam is stuck in some sort of mental rut, thinking god knows what about god knows what.

Sam snaps out of it at Dean’s voice.

“Yeah, yeah. Good idea.”

Between themselves they haul the unconscious demon down to the basement, snap him in cuffs and into a devils trap.

“You should get some rest.” Dean suggests.

Sam looks at him like he’s gone insane, and Dean drops it with a shrug.

“It was worth a shot.”

“You seriously think I’m leaving you alone—”

“You’re freaking out about this more than I am.”

“Give it time.” Sam mutters.

“Wow. Thanks.”

 

*

 

“Rowena, where are we?” Cas has a vague idea, and it’s not in the ‘bowels of hell’, as Rowena put it.

“Relax, I haven’t taken you here to murder you. Then I’d never find out what your cunning plan was.”

“Where are we, Rowena?”

“We’re in hell, obviously.”

“Where precisely?”

“Close to where we need to be.”

“Why are you being so obtuse?”

“Why won’t you tell me what you’re plotting?”

“I’m not plotting anything.”

She sighs.

“I can’t warp directly into Crowley’s inner sanctum. He’s far more paranoid than that. We’re a short walk from the gate.”

They pass the walk in silence. Rowena wants answers, but she knows she’ll have to wait to get them. That’s fine. She’s a very impatient person usually, but the stakes are high here. She can rein herself in for the sake of not dying a horrendous death.

They walk towards a grand, ornate door. It’s very Hades, made of bones and glittering black metals.

“That’s the gate to Crowley’s inner sanctum?” Cas asks, somewhat disbelievingly.

“No.” Rowena snorts. “That’s just there to impress people. No-one who goes through that door ends up where they intend.”

Cas rolls his eyes. Figures.

Rowena leads them to the side. The actual door to the heart of Crowley’s hell is small and plain. A steel prison door.

Two demons stand guard outside, looking bored. It’s a decent disguise. No-one would be surprised to see guards outside a prison cell.

“Ah, gentlemen.” Rowena breezes up, with her best charming smile. Cas hangs back, tries not to draw attention to himself.

“You know we’re not allowed to let you in here without the boss.” The one on the left grits out, irritated and exasperated. A disagreement he’s clearly had with Rowena many times before.

“I am the King’s mother!”

“And the King has ordered that you aren’t allowed in here unaccompanied.”

“The King didn’t mean it.”

“Rowena. We won’t ask you again.”

“Fine, fine. Have it your way.”

She reaches forwards, hand around the throat of each demon and mutters a spell under her breath. There’s a muted, sulphurous pop, and they both fall to the ground.

Cas hurries over, surveys her work.

“Impressive.”

“Yes, no thanks to you.” She wipes her hands on her dress.

“I can’t use my grace here.” He says defensively. “Every single demon in hell would notice.”

Rowena sighs, rolls her eyes. She’s having quite a trying day. Also this feels suspiciously like being on the good side for once, and she’s not sure she likes it.

Mind you, she’s still technically saving her own skin. Just happens that it means saving other people too.

It feels less icky and heroic when she thinks of it like that. Heroes die. Self-serving arseholes don’t tend to.

Rowena reaches inside one of her pockets and pulls out a vial. Crowley’s blood. The door is spelled to recognise her and deny entry, unless it senses Crowley with her. Really, she thinks, he’s so paranoid, but his security systems are so basic. Especially seeing as the person he thinks he’s defending against is the one who taught him magic in the first place.

She bites her thumb, wipes her blood on the lock and then drops on a sliver of Crowley’s too. The door seems to think about it for a moment, but then it swings open.

“That was easy.” Cas says, surprised.

“Hmm. Not really. I forced the door to open, but it’s knows something is wrong. There’ll be demons on the way to check.”

She breaks into a run and Cas dives after her. He slips his angel blade out of his sleeve, holds tight to it as he runs. He can’t use his grace, but the blade isn’t immediately identifiable as his. Crowley has seen to it that there’s a supply of angelic weapons floating around, in the hands of the loyal and steadfast. He imagines a demon being snuffed out with one won’t merit too much attention.

“There are demons approaching. Only a few – should be no problem for the dream team.” Rowena throws back over her shoulder with a ferocious grin. She seems to be enjoying this rather more than she ought – rather more than a coward who survived by living in the shadows would. Maybe they’ve underestimated her. Maybe she’s recently acquired a taste for danger.

The demons attempt to flank them. One in front and one behind. Cas is an angel, even if he is diminished, so he senses the approach, drops to the ground and then lunges upwards at the confused demon with rocket-esque force, skewering it in half from cock to quiff.

Rowena whistles her approval, the other demon dead at her feet.

“I meant what I said about seeking me out after your boyfriend carks it.” She says with a leer. It’s how she’s figured to get a rise out of Cas. The only thing that appears to work.

Cas doesn’t quite growl, more an annoyed hiss, but Rowena still throws her hands up defensively.

“Touchy, touchy. The room I think he keeps the spell in is nearby – and if it’s not in there, well, we’ll just have to look the old fashioned way.”

“How close.”

She grins, takes a couple of paces forwards and plunges her hand into the wall. There’s a screaming sound, and then the door swings open.

“This close.”

“Why did the door scream?” Cas asks, even though he really doesn’t want to know.

“Demonic soul trapped inside it. Perfect guard, better than a spell. Spells just do what they’re told, souls think for themselves. They die if sundered, so they fight back very hard.”

“That one didn’t.”

“It tried, poor thing.”

Cas suppresses a shudder, steps through the door.

 

*

 

The room is empty, only sign of life a green glow in the centre. The source of the illumination is a bowl which flickers with emerald flames, twisting and dancing to an invisible breeze. Rowena picks her way carefully over to it, attempts to pick it up.

There are four roots, grown out from each compass point, holding it in place. She clicks her tongue, looks at it thoughtfully.

 “Bad news?” Cas asks.

“No.” She replies. “Just gross.”

“Gross?” He can’t see anything particularly disgusting.

Rowena draws a long, bloodstained knife and slices off the north root. Sulphurous puss oozes out, splashes her dress.

“What is that?” Cas asks, alarmed.

“It’s not connected to the spell. Just an enchantment Crowley used to keep it bound here. Easy enough to break.”

She carves off the other roots, grimacing as the smell of sulphur fills the air, drowns out the smell coming off the bowl. Offal and forests and loamy dirt – like an open grave on a hot summer’s day, all tangled up with some idyllic woodland scene. She’s not sure which she prefers.

With a disgusted grimace she picks up the bowl, settles it on her hip and then turns to Cas “So.” She says. “Long walk back, no demons in sight for the foreseeable. I think now’s the point where you explain why I lied through my teeth about this spell to all of your little friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad news: there will be no chapter next week.
> 
> Good news: that's because my DCBB, 120k of thought out, well plotted, betaed loveliness, comes out on the 6th #shamelessplugging ;D


	29. Chapter 29

_Everything is on fire. She tries to take a deep breath but the air is too hot. It scorches her lungs, burns from the inside out. It’s too thick, too full of smoke to really breathe, and she’s going to die here if she can’t focus. The fire catches her hair and it ignites, burns up from tip to root. She is – was so proud of her hair._

_Flame haired. Ha._

_Her eyes are so dry that blinking brings no relief. It’s all she can think of, strangely. Not the pain, not the smell of her own flesh bubbling and sizzling – pork on a barbeque. Just her agonisingly dry eyeballs._

_Focus, Rowena. She needs to focus, but being on fire is something that’s quite hard to ignore. There are some things that you can brush aside, this, obviously, is not one of them._

_Focus, Rowena. Focus! Focus or die. Those are her choices, and yet it’s not really much of a choice at the moment._

_She closes her eyes, pulls in a deep, stuttering, burning breath._

_“Rowena.”_

_She recognises that gruff rumble. He shouldn’t be in this dream. He wasn’t there._

_She opens her eyes and there Cas is regardless, standing amongst the fire, irritatingly unruffled._

_“Why’re you here?” She rasps, unable to believe she’s wasting precious oxygen on this shite._

_“We need to talk.”_

_“And why aren’t you on fire?” He could at least have the decency to look a little bit singed._

_Cas shrugs. “It’s your dream.”_

_Excellent point, she thinks, maliciously directs the flames to jump at Cas’s sleeves._

_The left one ignites and Cas grimaces, extinguishes it with a thought._

_“Not fair.” She pouts._

_“This is important, Rowena.”_

_“Get me out of here, then!”_

_He acquiesces with a wave of his hand, and suddenly they’re standing in a meadow. She looks around._

_“How, uh, charming…”_

_Cas ignores her._

_“I’m going to wake you up soon, and when I do, I’m going to need you to do something for me.”_

_“Ooh. Intriguing.”_

_“I’m going to need you to pretend that you’ve been able to hear everything we’ve been saying while you were unconscious.”_

_“Or you could just tell me.”_

_“I don’t have time. I need you to tell them something, and you need to repeat it word for word, no adlibbing or embellishing.”_

_“And if I don’t want to play your little game?”_

_“Then I pulp your brain, and there’s no-one to contradict me when I tell them the same thing.”_

_Ever the pragmatist, she decides to hear Cas out._

_“So what’s the message?”_

_He tells her. She blinks, thinks it through._

_“But that’s not—”_

_“Accurate, yes. I know. But I have a way to fix all of this, and it hinges on no-one knowing what I’m really doing.”_

_“And you think they’ll believe me?”_

_“Sam and Dean don’t know enough about magic to dispute it, and Crowley will be too busy plotting his escape to think it through.”_

_“My, we are a devious little one, aren’t we?”_

_“Will you help or not?”_

_“Hmm. Will I lie to the Winchesters at great risk to my own skin, to prevent the world from ending?” She pretends to weigh it up, snorts with laughter. “Of course.”_

_“Thank you.”_

_“It’s this or have my brain pulped.”_

 

*

 

“So, come on. Why the charade? Why’d we have to go get this bowl? Why’d I spout all that bollocks?”

“It’s not bollocks.” Cas repeats the word distastefully, as though he can’t quite bear to wrap his tongue around it.

“Please. That spell doesn’t need a sacrifice. It’s _bloated_ with sacrifice, popping out at the seams with all of Dean’s deaths. All it needs is time.”

Cas shrugs.

“I told you, I have a plan.”

“Yes, you did. A plan you won’t share with anyone. Why might that be?”

“They’ll try and stop me. Well, Sam and Dean will. I don’t think you or Crowley would be too upset.”

“So why not tell me?”

“Because I don’t trust you.”

“I could blow this whole thing wide open with three words. You trust me enough not to do that.”

“This is different.”

“Why?”

“Please, Rowena.” He sounds so fed up, so tired, so downtrodden, that she lets it drop. Not out of compassion though. She just knows not to keep flogging a dead angel, as it were.

“So, what am I doing with this, then?”

“A distraction. You make them think you’re unpicking the spell; that there’s nothing they can do and all we need is time. Just something to stop them running off. I have some things I need to tie up.

Ooh. Interesting wording. Very interesting. God, she loves drama.

 

*

 

Sam and Dean are sitting in the library. And they’re not waiting for Cas to get back, but let’s face it, they are. Sam’s making an effort at researching, he’s built himself a kind of fort out of books on witchcraft – piled so high around him that Dean can’t actually see him. Fuck it, for all Dean knows he skipped out hours ago. Y’know, hightail it to as far away as possible before the shit hits the fan and all the monsters start pouring out.

Dean doesn’t bother researching. He poured himself a glass of whiskey maybe an hour ago, maybe more. Hasn’t got around to drinking it yet. He’s just been swirling it around and around in the glass, hypnotised by the way the light catches at it.

He’s disconnected, feels like his tether on reality is hanging loose. It just seems so ridiculous. Thinking back to the last time he was mostly okay, the last time that there wasn’t some big abject terror licking at his heels – in his 20’s and closeted and fucked up, repressed and clawing desperately for his father’s approval. Doesn’t sound like heaven, and it wasn’t. But at least it was a simple enough kind of torment. The worst thing he felt was a cloying sense of discomfort with his life, a longing for something better, an escape to something more.

Then came selling his soul, and hell, and angels and the grand plan and betrayal and leviathan and the Mark of Cain and being a demon. And now this. The Mark of Cain is the least of his worries, and isn’t that a fucked up thing to think. The Mark of Cain is heroin to the methadone currently digging a hold on his back. Replacing one bad thing with another isn’t a cure. It’s just different marketing.

And the kicker is, the worst fucking thing is that yeah. It’s not even really true that he was better when he was younger. Things were easier, but he wasn’t happy. He’s been happy these last few months, in between the fights and the pressing, suffocating worry. He could live with the seesaw between joy and dread, if he had to. But nah, it’s always gotta come to fruition. You can’t hold the tide back forever, or some bullshit.

He’s not even sure where he’s going with this. Everything’s fragmented and fucked up and he just wants Cas to get back and tell him that they’re sorting it out and that it’s gonna be okay. Cas is good at that – he can lie by omission, but he can’t straightforward lie to Dean’s face. Or maybe he just chooses not to. Dean’ll take either, at the moment.

When Sam tells him things are gonna be okay, Dean has a hard time believing him. The amount of times he’s heard that come outta Sam’s mouth – and it hasn’t always been a lie, but it has enough times.

And yeah, he’s definitely rambling – does it even count as rambling, if it’s just in your head – but that’s better than thinking about everything else. About Cas offering to mercy kill him so that he doesn’t have to suffer. That’s the bit that’s getting him, probably the bit holding him back from processing this all properly and freaking the fuck out.

Cas had given up on him, even if only briefly.

That fucking stings, when he remembers it, when he can’t drown it out with other thoughts, when it pops back up and waves for his attention.

Cas, who’d follow him to the ends of the world if asked, probably if not asked, probably if specifically told to fuck off as well. And even despite that, for a brief moment Cas hadn’t seen another way out, and he’d given up.

He hadn’t seen a way out, and maybe he’s right. Maybe this is it. Maybe it’s the end of the fucking world.

What would Cas do, Dean wonders, if it came to that? Would he stand at the gates of purgatory – Dean carefully thinks about it in neutral terms, the gates, not the portal torn from his own flesh – try and stem the flow at the source. What would that feel like for Dean, as he experienced a thousand deaths at Cas’s hands and blade before one of his avatars finally slipped through that defence and dealt a fatal blow?

What would it feel like to be killed by Cas a thousand times, and then flip that around and slaughter him in return?

He’s starting to get why Cas suggested it’d be merciful to let the demon take over.

Then again, that’d only happen if Cas stays and fights. He doesn’t have to. He’s got grace, he could check out – off on back to heaven to watch and mourn as the world gets torn apart. After all, standing and fighting wouldn’t make much sense. Every kill would just serve to return a monster to purgatory, a temporary reprieve so it could pop back later.

That wouldn’t matter though. He knows Cas, and he knows Sam. They won’t run, they’ll buy all the time they can, go down swinging.

One way or another, Dean is gonna kill someone he loves – and pointlessly, too. ‘Cause buying time, that ain’t gonna do shit. What’re they gonna buy time for? Time to build monster internment camps, keep them chained up and alive by any means possible, bury them in concrete or tar?

S’not gonna work. Not enough time and not enough concrete.

The only chance humanity would have left is to build themselves fucking forts and castles and all that medieval bullshit, and even then they’d only hold out for so long. You can’t ward against everything, and it only takes one fucking monster to get through and tear them apart from the inside.

So much for steering clear of morbid thoughts.

Dean swills the whiskey around some more, tries to clear his mind, focus on the colour. He wants to drink it but he can’t quite make his hand lift it up to his mouth. Can’t quite make himself commit to doing anything. Stuck in limbo, stuck in – no. Not going there.

Sam’s watch starts to beep and he hears an apologetic noise from somewhere in the pile of books.

“Sorry, it’s my alarm.”

“Alarm?”

Dean checks his own watch. Rowena and Cas have been gone a long time, considering they teleported to hell. Considering how time passes in hell relative to earth. They should’ve been back hours ago.

Maybe Dean won’t get his chance to kill Cas through a monster puppet. Maybe he’s already fucking dead. It’s not likely Crowley would have left his spell undefended. Maybe Rowena’s in on it too, and this was all one big fucking trap to lure Cas in and kill him, get him out of the way and—

“Dean, are you okay?”

Sam’s shoved a pile of books out of the way, is peering out of his nest with a worried expression.

“Just fucking peachy.”

“Dean—”

Luckily he’s spared whatever fucking lecture is about to come by a knock at the door. He springs to his feet, grateful for the distraction, but not grateful enough that he forgets to tuck his gun into his waistband, tapcheck his pocket for Ruby’s knife.

 

*

 

It’s not a demon, or a ravening horde of werewolves, or even a very lost and bemused door to door salesman. It’s a bedraggled looking Cas and Rowena.

“About time.” She says, sweeping past Dean and setting a wooden bowl on the table. It’s on fire, and Dean nearly snaps at her to be careful of burn marks on his nice table, but he resists.

“What happened?” Sam asks.

“What happened is apparently, the wards are set up to allow people to teleport out of this place, but not back in.” Rowena says, dividing her glare three ways around the room.

“I already told you, I didn’t know that.” Cas snaps.

She barrels on as if she hasn’t heard him. “So instead of aiming for just outside the boundary, I tried to return here and ended up bouncing off. Very unpleasant.”

“Is that why it took so long?” Sam asks.

“It took so long because I’m covered in sulphurous goop and no-one would pick us up. We had to walk back.” She says with disgust.

“Well, you’re back now.” Dean grunts, doing a fairly passable job of covering up how worried he’d been.

“We are. And now I’m going for a shower, and then I need to sleep for at least 10 hours.”

“Hey – wait, what about the spell?” Sam grabs her arm, stops her leaving.

“It’ll still be here when I get back.” She says, shrugging him off breezily.

“But, this is urgent!” He can’t quite believe that she’s forgotten – thinks she must just be trying to needle them.

“It’s not that urgent. I’d wager we’ve got weeks – possibly months.”

“But—”

“I can’t work sleep deprived sweetheart, and I certainly can’t work well enough to save your brother. You might be able to survive on fifteen minutes of sleep a week, but I’m human. An incredibly gifted human, but human none the less.”

Sam is less than satisfied with this response.

“The sooner we—”

“It’s always rush, rush, rush with you. Did you ever consider that your constant debilitating sleep deprivation might be the cause of all these big, dramatic, world-ending fuck ups you make?”

Sam gapes at her, unable to formulate a reply as she saunters out of the room.

He turns to Dean and Cas for support, sees that they haven’t even been listening. They’re standing together, Cas with a hand gripped gently around Dean’s wrist, looking him in the eye and saying something in a soft undertone.

And Sam hates to break it up, because it looks like Cas is trying to reassure Dean, salve over some of the damage he did with his despair, but he also needs some kind of direction here.

“So what do we do now?” Sam asks, tone fraught.

Cas lets go of Dean’s arm, shrugs.

“Same as Rowena, we rest. We don’t know how long this will take, or whether we’ll have a chance to stop once things are set in motion. Best we prepare ourselves as much as possible in the meantime.”

Dean laughs.

“You think I’m ever gonna sleep again, knowing all this?”

Cas smiles at him, soft and fond and sad, brings his hand up to cup the side of Dean’s face. Dean leans into the touch.

“You will need to sleep sometime, Dean. I can’t stave that off, I’m afraid. I suspect sleep deprivation will make this all harder to fight, too.” He feels the way Dean trembles under his hand, adds. “But we don’t have to tonight, if you feel that strongly. Tonight we can just relax.”

Dean nods slowly, and Cas’s hand drops to his shoulder, squeezes once.

Sam makes a noise like he wants to argue, and Cas silences him with a glare.

“Why don’t you go and set up the TV in our room, Dean.” Cas suggests. “I’ll be along presently.”

Dean snorts.

“I know a dismissal when I hear one.”

“I just want to make sure that bowl is secure. You’re welcome to stay and watch.”

“Nah. Don’t take too long, I’ll be waiting.”

Cas watches Dean leave the room with a strange, troubled look in his eye. As soon as he’s gone, he turns to Sam, who looks like he’s about to launch into an attack.

“Don’t, Sam.”

“You’re asking me to just sit—”

“I’m asking you to look after yourself. The last thing Dean needs right now is to be worried that you’re running yourself into the ground.”

“Who cares whether I’m—”

“Rowena has this under control. She’s confident enough that she feels she can sleep for 10 hours before she even attempts the problem. You’ve been granted a reprieve – take it.”

“You don’t think she can do it!” Sam snaps. “So why the fuck should I believe she can?!”

“What?”

“I’ve seen that look you keep giving Dean, that guilty little twitch. You’re lying to him – you’ve spotted a flaw, or something, in Rowena’s plan but you’re pretending to go along with it, fucking trying to keep Dean happy in his final moments.”

“I—”

“Well guess what, I haven’t given up and if I never fucking sleep again I’m gonna find an answer.”

Cas laughs then, loud and bitter, repeats what he’d been trying to say before Sam cut him off.

“Oh, I feel guilty all right, but not for that reason. I know Rowena can save Dean. I feel _guilty_ because this entire thing is my fault.”

Now it’s Sam’s turn to be confused.

“What?”

“Purgatory has been around for millennia, and never once in that time has it expressed a desire to deviate from its original purpose.”

“So what?”

“So, where do you think it got the idea from?”

It takes Sam a moment, but he gets it.

“You think—”

“Millennia of contentment, and then a couple of years after I do it forcibly, suddenly purgatory wants to be empty.”

“Oh.” Sam doesn’t know what to say, can think of no words to salve the guilt he knows must be weighing on Cas’s shoulders. “I – I had no idea, sorry.”

Cas shrugs, breaks eye contact and draws a sigil in chalk on the table, places the bowl in the middle.

“Try and get some sleep, Sam. At least one of us should be okay.”

This time Sam doesn’t argue, nods his head and turns awkwardly to make for his room.

Cas waits until he’s gone, sighs and waves a hand through the green flames. It’s pleasantly warm, sends a spark from the tips of his fingers to his toes.

All the best lies have just enough truth to them to obfuscate, confuse the issue. This wasn’t even necessarily a lie. He does feel responsible for what’s happening, that’s just not the sum total of his guilt.

No time to dwell on that, though. He’s kept Dean waiting for long enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back, back again. It's me. I know I said one week, I just had a bout of creative fatigue and wasn't sure how to link two major plot points. Sorted now aww yiss.
> 
> I have been drinking (I know, you wouldn't be able to tell) so last chance double check editing might be shonky. Will double check tomorrow xoxoxox


	30. Chapter 30

“This happened in a book once.” Cas says from the doorway, by way of greeting.

Dean looks up from the bed, doesn’t need to ask what Cas means by ‘this’.

“I imagine everything happened in a book once, somewhere.”

“Pretty much.” Cas agrees.

“Did the book have a happy ending?” Dean asks.

“Depends on your definition of happy.” Cas says, as he closes their bedroom door.

“Oh.”

“Broadly, I think.”

“Good for them. How’d they stop it?”

“They destroyed the entire universe and rebuilt it from scratch, but without the other dimension, the things on the other side of the portal.”

Dean snorts. “And there I was thinking you were coming to me with a solution.”

Cas looks at Dean, so serious and sad. “If I could rip apart the universe and rewrite it so that you didn’t have to suffer, I would. I would have long ago.”

And what the fuck do you say to that?

The silence stretches, Cas fidgets with his coat.

“I’m sorry, I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“No, you haven’t.” Dean reassures him. “Just, I don’t know what to say.”

Cas smiles, shakes his head. Dismisses it so easily. Dean decides to let him.

“You took so long, I was starting to wonder if you were coming.”

“Sam wanted a fight.”

“Yeah, he does that.”

“He wasn’t happy about, uh, before. Thinks I’ve given up on you.”

“You had a blip, I get it.” Dean dismisses it more easily than he should, wants to avoid talking about it. He pats the bed. “C’mon then, there’s a new Attenborough documentary on Netflix. I know you love that nature shit.”

“We could do that.” Cas says, starting to undo his belt. “Or we could save that for later.”

Dean grins. “I can get down with that.”

He crawls to the end of the bed, settles down and bats Cas’s hand away from the buckle. He grabs the half undone belt, uses it to pull Cas closer.

“Hey there.” He says, looking up at Cas with a grin.

Cas brushes one thumb over Dean’s cheek, fists the other into his hair scrapes his nails gently against Dean’s scalp. Dean leans back into the touch, groaning softly.

“I can just give you a massage if you’d rather.” Cas says, one eyebrow raised. Not that Dean can see, eyes closed with bliss, practically purring.

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Dean sighs, unthreading Cas’s belt without looking and dropping it to the floor.

Cas stops massaging and Dean groans, cracking his eyes open, disappointed.

“I thought you said you didn’t want a massage.” Cas teases.

“I don’t know what I want.”

Cas divests Dean of his over and undershirts, pushes at his shoulders until he falls down onto the bed and kneels over him, grinning at the smug, anticipatory look on Dean’s face. Cas doesn’t go straight for the kiss, nips at Dean’s neck and licks a broad stripe across his chest, tweaking one nipple gently.

Dean shifts underneath him, not quite writhing but definitely trying to get closer to the action. Cas scrapes his nails slowly over Dean’s stomach, moves down incrementally, almost unnoticeably until he’s at Dean’s waistband.

Dean grunts his approval, but Cas doesn’t make good on that promise. He brushes his fingers along the thatch of hair just poking out of Dean’s boxers, and then he brings his hand back up to Dean’s head.

“Fuckin’ tease.” Dean admonishes, and Cas doesn’t contradict him. Instead he kisses the complaint away, soft, gentle, and so unlike Cas’s usual attempts at foreplay. True to form though, eventually he can’t resist a little biting nip, almost but not quite drawing blood.

Dean reaches up to touch Cas, realises he’s still almost entirely clothed and makes a noise of displeasure. He quickly works to fix that. Gross and frumpy and form hiding it might be, but there is one advantage to Cas’s uniform of shirt and jacket. You don’t need to stop kissing to get it off him. Dean pops the buttons nice and slow, stopping in between each one to caress the patch of skin it reveals. He loves the feel of Cas’s firm muscle under his hands, coiled mortal strength barely hinting at the real supernatural might hidden beneath it.

Might that can, and has been, used to pick Dean up and fuck him against walls. He shivers at the thought, the sense memory.

Dean finishes exploring Cas’s chest, decides that yeah, making out all nice and gentle is alright, but there are much more exciting things they can be doing right now.

He pops the button of Cas’s slacks, pulls them halfway down his leg. They get stuck at the knees, because the unhelpful fucker won’t lift up and help Dean, god forbid, but they’re out of the way enough for Dean to get his hands on the goods, as it were.

He brushes the back of his hand over Cas’s crotch, smiles when Cas groans into the kiss and pulls away.

He looks at Dean sort of dazedly for a moment, an expression that Dean has seen so many times but still makes him sort of uncomfortable. Adoration, pure and simple. And it’s nice, for Dean especially, as self-loathing and doubting as he can be, but it’s also kind of intimidating. How do you live up to that, how do you be the person who fucking deserves that look?

Dean doesn’t know, but he figures maybe that’ll come with time. Hopes they fucking have time for it to come.

“How do you wanna play this?” Dean asks, to break the moment, and also because he wants to move this party along.

“I don’t mind.” Cas says, nuzzles into Dean’s neck and starts to suck and lick all along, making it really hard for Dean to think what he wants.

“Uhhhhh, fuck me?” He gets out eventually, and from Cas’s huffed little laugh he knows it’s been a while since the question was asked. “Shuddup you.” He groans, swats at Cas’s face.

Cas grins at Dean, nips the tip of his nose and goes in for another long, slow kiss.

Eventually Cas pulls away, with great reluctance. He jumps down off the bed, does a totally unsexy shuffle out of his half-shed slacks, toes off his boxers while he’s there as well. He bends down to fetch a fresh bottle of lube from the bottom of his duffle, treating an appreciative Dean to the view of his ass as he does so.

 Dean, now resting up on his elbows, neglects to remind him that there’s an open one in the drawer. That view is just too good to pass up. Cas stands and stretches, and Dean can’t resist palming himself with one hand.

“If you’d rather do this by yourself, I can leave.” Cas says, turning around, and Dean stops with a groan.

“Hurry up then.”

“ _You_ haven’t even taken your jeans off.” Cas points out, striding back towards the bed and tugging at the hem of Dean’s right leg.

“I was waiting for you to rip them off me.”

Cas snorts, like he thinks Dean was joking. When Dean’s expression doesn’t change he rolls his eyes fondly, grabs the other pant leg and yanks both hard. Dean half slides down the bed with a yelp, grabs onto the sheets as Cas, slightly too roughly, divests him.

“Careful!”

“I thought you wanted to be manhandled.”

“I didn’t want friction burn.”

“Would you like me to kiss it better?”

Dean nearly teases him for the stupidly cheesy line, but, actually, he kinda does want Cas to kiss it better, so he just nods.

Cas starts at his ankles – he loves Dean, but he doesn’t necessarily love his feet – runs his tongue experimentally over the bone and works his way slowly up. He doesn’t spend long on Dean’s lower legs, presses a few brief kisses to his calves, follows them up with a soft pinch, because he’s Cas and even when he’s being tender, he has to be a little bit rough, a little bit of an asshole. Dean’s not complaining though, let’s face it.

He reaches Dean’s mid-thigh and pauses there. He spends a long time, far too long, on each spot, worrying at it with his teeth and then soothing it, kissing it and caressing it with his tongue.

Dean’s almost vibrating out of his skin, and Cas hasn’t even got to the good bit. He recognises that he’s getting a taste of his own medicine – this is exactly what he does to Cas, strings him out to that line somewhere between bliss and torture, holds him there for as long as possible.

Getting it in return, it’s good. It’s _fucking_ good.

“Cas.” He groans, and the fucker doesn’t even look up, just squeezes gently on Dean’s knee and carries on going.

Dean hasn’t even got his fucking boxers off yet, hasn’t had his cock touched, and okay he’s not gonna come just from Cas teasing at his thighs – probably, hopefully. He doesn’t think his pride could take it.

Dean fists one of his hands into Cas’s hair, tugs at it a little, uses the other to scrape his nails at the back of Cas’s neck. He wants to touch Cas, make him feel good in return, but he’s so relaxed, boneless and at ease, that he can’t bring himself to properly protest or put up a fight.

And then Cas starts to inch Dean’s boxers off, releasing his cock painfully slowly. Cas smacks Dean’s thigh gently, waits while he kicks himself free and then licks a long, slow stripe up his cock.

Dean bucks up with a whine, not prepared for the intensity of having his actual cock touched when Cas has spent so long teasing. Not that Cas is done teasing, by any stretch. He rubs his nose along Dean’s cock, nuzzles into his groin

Dean’s relaxed and pliant, totally at ease and not paying attention to the sneaky little look in Cas’s eye, the one that means Dean’s going to love him and hate him for whatever he’s about to do.

“Hey, Dean?” Cas asks.

“Whuh?” Dean manages to reply.

“Can I eat you out?”

Dean groans, bucks up slightly just at the thought. He’s been held strung out for so long that pretty much anything would set him off, but that especially. Yeah.

“Is that a yes?” Cas asks, with that dumb little grin.

“Yes!” Dean says, pulling at Cas’s hair, a token effort at dragging him closer to where he wants that wicked tongue.

And then Dean is in motion, his legs suddenly splayed over Cas’s shoulders. And there’s Cas’s tongue, sloppy and ferocious. Fucking perfect.

This is more like the usual Cas. Barely restrained and hungry for as much of Dean as he can possibly get.

And he does fucking go for it, fingers dug bruisingly tight into Dean’s thighs, tongue relentless and furious, exploring and claiming brutally as Dean tries uselessly to buck and writhe, hands clawed in the sheets as he groans, low and unrestrained.

And then Cas slips in the first finger.

“Cas, I’m gonna—” Dean says, a warning, a plea for him to slow down.

“No.” Cas grunts, like that’s it. Like his word alone is going to be enough to stop Dean’s impending orgasm.

Cas seems to realise this, pulls off with a wet smack that makes Dean shiver.

Dean realises what’s about to happen even as Cas turns his head, returns his attention to Dean’s bruised thighs.

“No.” Dean groans, slaps at Cas’s head gently. “No more teasing!”

“I thought you didn’t want to come yet. I thought you said it always felt better when there was a big, fat cock splitting you open, making you feel every last inch.”

Dean groans again, squeezes the base of his cock.

“I wish you’d never fucking learned how to talk dirty.”

Cas bites at Dean’s thigh, draws a little blood.

“No you don’t.”

“No.” Dean agrees, in a husky tone, heaving in deep breaths to try and get himself back under control. C’mon, he’s not 16 anymore, he’s got stamina.

“Lemme touch you.” Dean asks, not begs, he doesn’t beg.

There’s a long moment where Cas seems to consider, and Dean thinks he’s going to say no, but eventually he acquiesces. He abandons Dean’s poor, oversensitive thighs and drags himself up Dean’s body, touching as much of it as he possibly can. Which, yeah, not helping the whole calming down thing.

Neither does the feeling of Cas’s cock under his fingers as he gives it a few long, slow pulls, the little moans that Cas can’t hold in.

Not that Cas lets Dean touch him for long. Dean only gets a few strokes in before his hand is being removed.

He decides he’s about as ready as he’s ever going to be, fumbles for the bottle of lube on the bed and knocks it against Cas’s side.

“Subtle.” Cas laughs, but he takes the bottle, coats his fingers and then rubs them together to warm up the cold lube. It must be Dean’s fucking birthday.

Cas slips in one finger and starts to stretch Dean open so slowly, so gently. Dean can handle this, more than, in fact. Cas keeps on going, so careful and tender, goes on way past when he could add another finger, and it’s nice, and it feels good. But it’s not enough.

“Cas.” Dean complains, and the fucker just grins at him.

“Yes, Dean?” Like he doesn’t know exactly what Dean wants.

“You’re killing me here.”

Cas hums, and that look is back, the dangerous one that means he’s considering doing the opposite of what they both want, just to be a contrary little shit.

Luckily for Dean, he finally decides to move the party on, slipping in another finger and getting to work in earnest.

And Dean’s not the right touch and a momentary lapse in concentration away from blowing his load anymore, but he’s getting desperate all the same. Gentle sparks of pleasure are good, so fucking good, but they’re nothing close to the growing, desperate need to be filled.

Cas won’t be moved though. Dean tries everything, every little button and pressure point he knows. He pulls at Cas’s hair, bites him, even tries to touch his cock – the only thing Cas responds to, and then only to bat his hand away. Nothing. Cas is a fucking rumbling glacier, churning along at his own steady pace.

Finally, finally he adds the last finger. Dean’s fucking ready to vibrate out of his skin, cry from need. He’s begging, incomprehensible mumbles and cries.

And then Cas withdraws completely.

“I think you’re ready.” He says.

And Dean’s too desperate to snark back, just nods hazily.

Cas laughs.

“I want you to ride me, face to face. That okay?”

Dean grunts an affirmative, waits as Cas settles against the headboard, lubes up his cock and beckons Dean closer.

Dean lowers himself down gently, slowly, waiting to adjust before settling in Cas’s lap. He groans, trembles with anticipation, desperate to start moving but knowing he needs to give them both a moment.

And then he starts to move. He starts slow as always, but he builds up far quicker than he usually would until he’s pounding up and down.

And then Cas grabs at his ass, digs his nails in and bites out, “slow down.”

Dean comes reluctantly to an almost halt, rests his forehead against Cas’s.

“S’not like you, uh. You’re usually tryna give me, uh, third degree friction burn by this point.”

“I don’t think that’s how friction burn works.” Cas points out through gritted teeth.

“Shuddup and fuck me.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, drags his nails along Dean’s back, grinding up gently to meet Dean’s downward motion. He holds them at a slow pace, refuses to countenance Dean’s attempts to speed up, keeps it tender and slow.

Dean can’t even bring himself to complain about being denied rapid release. This, this is fucking good. The little sparks of bliss he was feeling when Cas rimmed him are coming furiously now, steady and sure and so fucking good. And he knows that once he lets go this’ll be gone, so he holds on, resists coming for as long as he can.

He brings his hands up to frame Cas’s face, kisses him, slow and tender and then pulls way. He takes Cas in, eyes closed and mouth slack with pleasure, rapture.

Dean rests their foreheads together again, whispers into the breathy silence between them.

“I love you.”

Cas smiles, wide and blissed out, opens his eyes.

“I love you too. So much.”

Cas is the first to come. Dean recognises the signs, the way he digs his nails into Dean’s back, speeds up incrementally. Cas lets go, and Dean does to, coming with a grunt, head falling forward to rest on Cas’s shoulder.

They stay there for a long while, until Dean starts to feel exhausted, uncomfortable. Cas helps him up, mojos them both clean with a flick of his wrist. Dean doesn’t even complain about the waste of grace, just collapses down into bed and pulls Cas close until they’re curled up together, chest to chest.

Dean falls asleep, and Cas stays awake, strokes his fingers through Dean’s hair and just breathes.

 

*

 

Cas lies curled into Dean’s side for an hour, two. He keeps telling himself just one more minute, just one more second of peace. The gentle huff of Dean’s breath against his neck, the heat of him.

But they can’t stay like that forever. Cas has work to do.

He presses a soft kiss to Dean’s lips, disentangles himself from the bed.

He stands there for a long time, looking at Dean, drinking him in.

And then he shuts the door behind him with a gentle click.

 

*

 

_Dean dreams of the sea. He’s sailing a boat, which he doesn’t think he knows how to do. Still, it’s going well enough. And it’s open and clear, salt spray on his face. Not a tree for miles._

_Ain’t that a good feeling._

_He breathes deep, fills his lungs with fresh, clear air._

_Hands wrap around his waist and his grin gets a little wider. He doesn’t turn around though, he knows it’s Cas, and he can’t take his eyes away from the horizon. It might change, if he does. He’s got to keep it in sight. Keep it fixed._

_“Dean?” There’s a strange quality to Cas’s voice, something at odds with the wispy substance of the dream._

_He’s too solid, too real._

_Oh._

_Cas is dreamwalking. Maybe._

_“S’up, Cas?”_

_“I’ve got something important to ask you.”_

_“Knock yourself out.”_

_“I'm going to ask you a question, and when I do, I need you to say ‘yes’, can you do that for me?”_

_“What? Why, Cas?”_

_“I just need you to trust me; can you trust me for a few minutes?”_

_“I do trust you, Cas.”_

_“Good. Okay, I'm gonna ask you now, are you ready?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_"Will you let me in, Dean?"_

_“What?” Dean’s thrown. Let him in where? They’re outside? Maybe this is just a dream after all – nonsensical rubbish. In which case, fuck it, might as well play along._

_Anyway, he'd let Cas join him anywhere, if he wanted. Cas has gotta know that._

_Cas does, it's what he's counting on, enough for his ploy to work._

_“Dean, please. Will you let me in?"_

_"Yeah Cas, of course you can come in."_

_"I'm so sorry for this, Dean." Cas says, and then, nothing._

 

*

 

Downstairs, tucked behind a bookcase where it won't be found too soon, before Cas can do what he needs to, Jimmy Novak's body is slumped, empty, graceless. Dead.

Cas doesn't expect to see it again. Couldn't spare the grace required to keep it in stasis.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for dropping a cliffhanger like that on you and bailing, that was NOT COOL. Basically I was spending every free scrap of time I had flathunting (eughhhhh) but I have a place now and am sorted YAAAY.

Rowena settles herself in one of the spare bedrooms, but she doesn’t sleep. She gathers up cushions and pillows, blankets and throws. She thinks best when she’s comfortable, when there are no niggling little distractions, and right now she needs to think.

Someone needs to know what Cas’s plan is, even if he doesn’t intend on sharing it. Despite what he might want or think, this is not the sort of secret that anyone should be allowed to carry by themselves, and especially not to their grave.

He hasn’t said anything, but that look. That little look he’s had in his eye for the last while, angry, wistful, melancholy. She’s seen that look on a thousand brave women and men about to throw away their lives for some greater cause. And what is the end of the world if not a greater cause.

What is Dean Winchester, if not a greater cause?

She runs through what Cas said. An answer, but one that Sam and Dean won’t like.

See, there’s a double layer of difficulty here. She doesn’t just have to find a way to stop Dean from being ripped open and turned into a living portal. She needs to find what Cas would deem a suitable alternative. Not _a_ solution, but Cas’s solution.

Because Cas’s solution might not be the one that’s best for the world. And by the world, she, of course, means herself.

Still, she hasn’t survived for this long without being able to understand people, and Cas might not be human, but he’s still a person.

It takes her a few hours, but she gets it, eventually. Not the eureka moment, but the long, slow crawl to understanding.

She eases herself off the bed, tiptoes to Dean and Cas’s room. Cas is standing at the door with his back to her. He turns, too quickly for her to hide.

“Rowena.” He sounds tired, resigned.

“Castiel.”

“Please, don’t try and stop me.”

“Wasn’t planning on it, dear. The fate of the world is in your hands.”

“Tell them—”

“Tell them what?”

He laughs, shrugs.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Not great, as last words go.”

“You won’t be the one to hear my last words, Rowena.”

“If you insist.”

They stand awkwardly for a moment, and then Rowena steps forward, embraces Cas. He doesn’t move, confused, shocked. Or too numb with thoughts of what is to follow.

She whispers in his ear, “Be brave.” Withdraws as if nothing has passed between them. Two very old souls, meeting in the night. No strangers to sacrifice and strife.

They go their separate ways, Rowena to her makeshift room, Cas to the basement.

 

*

 

Rowena doesn’t stay in her room for long.

She knocks on Sam’s door, a gentle, barely audible tap. It’s enough. The door flies open and Sam, furious and towering and very intimidating with it, starts to yell, stutters to a halt when he sees it’s Rowena. He pauses, stymied, the rage quelling with surprise.

He cycles through some half formed questions, eventually settles on, “What the fuck do you want?”

“Charming.” She rolls her eyes, drums her fingers against the doorframe.

“What happened to your beauty sleep?”

“There’s something much more exciting about to happen. Are you coming or not?”

“What?”

“You’re going to regret all this dallying when you end up missing the main event.” She says, turns and starts to walk away. Someone needs to bear witness to this, and frankly, she wants it to be her. She’s lived a long time, but she’s been in the right place for very few moments of world bending drama. In fairness, it’s probably a good part of why she’s still alive.

Sam curses, runs up behind her, like he’s trying to make enough noise to wake up everyone in the bunker. She shushes him impatiently.

“We can’t disturb them.” She chides.

“Distur—”

Rowena rounds on him furiously, snaps her fingers. Sam is suddenly very aware of her age and power. She seems inept and feckless, she isn’t always.

She sheds her mask with ease, shows a sliver of what’s beneath it, a witch who is old and powerful and has seen more than Sam ever will. Capricious and impulsive and with the ability to snap his neck, should she choose.

The words set in his throat like concrete, and try as he might he can’t spit them out. Hs voice is clogged, heavy and unusable.

“Now, are we going to behave?” She asks, and with a little grin the daft schemer is back.

Sam nods, waits for her to lift the spell. He doesn’t attack, or try and fight. He thinks that he understands, and he wants to see what is so interesting that she’d show a sliver of her real self, sweep away his underestimation, in order to keep him from disturbing it.

She clicks her fingers again, and they carry on down the corridor to Dean’s room.

Sam will think back to this moment a lot in the coming months – he’ll wonder many things, but mostly, he’ll wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t delayed them. If they’d got there in time to stop it.

He’ll wonder _if_ he’d have stopped it.

He won’t tell Dean any of this. Dean will never know about the moment of potential that Sam squandered with his bullish inability to just do what Rowena told him. He knows Dean wouldn’t be able to help but blame him for it. He’d try so, so hard not to hate Sam, but he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. He wouldn’t see what Cas did as a sacrifice, he’d see it as throwing his life away. And he’d see Sam as the guy who just stood back and let it happen.

It’s the sort of thing that Dean would do himself in a heartbeat – has already done – but that doesn’t matter, because he’s Dean and he thinks that _he_ doesn’t matter.

He’s the only one who’s allowed to sacrifice himself, and not for the world, not for the big things, the apocalypses and the dooms. For the little things like keeping his family together. Let the others save the world. He’ll save his little, battered, found family. With his own blood and bone and sinew. With his soul.

But god forbid, they try and do the same back.

Sam gets what Cas is doing, and that’s why he probably wouldn’t have tried to stop him. He gets that sometimes, what you’re giving up, it isn’t as important to you as what you’re giving it up for.  

Dean’s life means more to Cas, than Cas’s own.

Except, that’s not fair, that’s not the truth. Dean being spared eternal suffering, and the continued existence of everyone else on earth today, that’s what is being weighed here, in the balance against Cas’s life. And of course Cas is gonna say that’s worth the trade. That’s why he’s Cas.

Sam gets it. And he knows Dean’ll get it, some day, years and years and years down the line, when he’s stopped taking it as a personal sleight, a fucking body blow aimed at him and him alone.

Not right now though, so Dean doesn’t get to find out that Sam nearly had a chance. Cas gets all the blame.

Sam knows it’s what he’d want.

Anyway, as it is, Sam doesn’t get a chance. He stumbles after Rowena, arrives just in time for the show.

Dean’s lying, frowning slightly, in an otherwise empty bed. And Sam wonders for a moment where Cas is, but then he gets distracted by the brilliant white light. It’s harsh, throws Dean into relief. Picks out the shadows under his eyes, the half healed wounds and the pallor of his skin. He looks sallow, unwell and stretched thin. He looks like his tragic fucking life has finally caught up with him – all that suffering and hurt and recrimination and self-disgust festering on the inside drawing up to the surface and changing the very make up of his face.

“What’s the white light?” Sam asks, in a whispered undertone. It’s familiar, so, so familiar, but he can’t place it.

He’s fighting hard not to be worried. Rowena isn’t, she seems almost gleeful, and Sam isn’t sure whether he’s finding that reassuring or it’s swinging him the other way. He doesn’t know which end of the spectrum she sits on – for them or against them, because let’s face it, they’ve never been good with nuance. The categories have never really been monster or good guy. It’s always been Winchester or not.

“It’s Cas.” Rowena says.

The penny drops, Dean croaks out a gruff, sleepy “yeah.”

Cas streams in through Dean’s open mouth.

 

*

 

It’s like being chained to a comet? Not quite. It’s like swallowing one whole and feeling it settle in your belly. White hot and red hot and all the ways you’ve ever heard heat described, and then some.

It’s agony, physical, and of betrayal.

*

 

Everything happens very quickly after that. There’s no heartfelt moment of goodbye – Cas as Dean doesn’t embrace Sam and tell him to keep an eye on Dean, or apologise that it had to end up like this, or even try and explain himself.

Dean sits up, gives a brief, bitter smile. One that Sam can’t even place, tell whether it’s Cas, or Dean.

And then the screaming starts.

 

*

 

Cas knew it would hurt. He’s pouring himself into a vessel that isn’t truly his, a vessel tainted by purgatory and the Mark of Cain. He’s pouring himself into someone who never would have wanted this, who fights back with every molecule of his being. He’s pouring himself into Dean, and he doesn’t have the strength to shut Dean out, tamp him down or block him. They’re both going to feel every last second.

Dean’s going to feel Cas’s pain as he scours Dean’s body clean, and in return Cas gets the hurt and the betrayal and the fear. And Dean’s shocked now, doesn’t quite know what’s going on. He will soon, though. He’ll work it out. And Cas doesn’t know if he’ll be able to take it.

Cas is already in agony, and he knows he can’t hold out for long. He knows Dean’s mouth hangs open, a scream so jagged it rips at his vocal chords, but he can’t stop it, can’t spare the focus. Not for that, and not to explain, to reassure Dean. Not to lie.

He starts with the splinter, the seed, dug into Dean’s back at Crowley’s behest, allowed to sit there festering and growing. It tears out of Dean’s body, hits the opposite wall and falls to the floor. That’s just the start. The source of the infection but not the rot itself. There’s only one way to purge that, and Cas throws himself into it.

He cleanses Dean to the smell of scorching flesh. And Dean will bear the burn scars from this until the day that he dies, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he’ll have a life, and a death. Hopefully a natural one. But at the very least, not _this_ unnatural one.

Cas scours the tree from root to tip, lays waste to the visible signs of purgatory’s grip on Dean. But it’s not that simple, of course it isn’t. The branching tree is just a symptom, an outside visual of the inner malaise.

Cas has to clear the rest too, and it can’t be destroyed, not like this, not entrenched this deeply, not with Cas at the low level of strength he currently is. This rot is so grown into Dean that it would take Michael to destroy it, perhaps even God himself.

But Cas has an answer, he always does.

It’s the answer that makes this a one way trip, for him.

Dean finally clocks what he’s about to do, and the screaming stops. He wrests back control of his mouth, howls out

“NO!”

But it’s too late.

Cas gathers up every scrap of purgatory’s influence that he can find, the stuff locked into the flesh and marrow of Dean Winchester, and he doesn’t destroy it. He corrals it, converges it on Dean’s right forearm, towards the Mark of Cain.

 

*

 

Dean feels control of his body return to him, and he’s not thinking about what that means right now, he can’t. Sam is yelling something, trying to get him to look down, but he can’t, he won’t. ‘Cause he knows what he’ll see and he doesn’t want to. He’s panting with the effort to keep himself from looking, but he won’t, because he already fucking knows but if he doesn’t look down he doesn’t have to acknowledge it. A problem ignored is a problem that goes away, right? Right?!

Sam doesn’t seem to understand though, grabs Dean’s arm and twists it into his line of vision. He looks away, but it’s too late. He’s already seen it.

The Mark is still there, but there’s something else now on top of it now, half obscuring it. The silhouette of a twisted, stunted winter tree.

And outlining their combined shape, there’s a brilliant silver edging. It glows, steady, reassuring.

A three way seal, heaven and hell and purgatory. Bound together, tight. Permanent.

Nothing is getting out of that.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY. I was ill, and then it was my birthday so I made myself more ill by refusing to cancel my plans, and then it was Christmas, and then it was NYE, and then I've been working overtime all this week. BLEAUGH. Next chapter /should/ be out as usual, I already have some scenes sketched out for it, I just have to figure out how to tie them into a coherent narrative.
> 
> Hope you all had a wonderful xmas and new year xoxox

Rowena only stays just as long as she needs to, long enough to confirm that Cas’s scheme has worked. Ingenious really, taking two great, big problems and using them to cancel each other out. Trap one and, even cut off from the source of it’s power, it might find a way to escape. Lock them both away and they’ll be too busy fighting and raging at each other to bother. How do you stop a rabid dog? Throw it in a cage with another one and leave them to fight it out.

 Awful shame that Cas had to die for it, but there we are. Where would the world be without martyrs and heroes? Some people have the need to self-sacrifice coded into their souls, seems a shame to deny them the chance when it saunters obligingly into view.

Rowena slips out of the room while Sam is trying to convince Dean to look at his arm, unnoticed in the confusion, and makes her way to what could at best be called the bunker’s garden, and more honestly be called the wild, unkempt mess of land scattered around it.

Now for the difficult part, of course. God, but doing the right thing is such drearily hard work sometimes. She scouts around for a suitable place, a clearing or a gap, finds none. With an irritable frown she creates one, uses a spell to rip the offending foliage out of the soil and tosses it to the side.

Slightly winded from the effort, she sits on the ground, grimacing at the muck. She lays her hands on the earth and closes her eyes, mutters a spell in Old Irish, the root language of her mother tongue, Scots Gaelic. Old spells work best in the language they were birthed in, and besides, she rarely finds occasion to use either tongue these days. No point advertising to the world just how genuinely ridiculously old she is.

The spell spreads through the ground, learns and examines and reports back to her.

She contemplates briefly, she has a few options, but not all of them are practical. Gorse would be close enough to the right symbolic meaning, but she thinks the Winchesters’ would get a bit prissy about their dearly beloved friend and whatever having a bush as his grave marker. And besides, people think of gorse as a weed for a reason. Give it a few months and there’d be so much of the bloody stuff you wouldn’t know where Cas was buried.

Aspen would grow here, but much like the gorse, it would spread too quickly given the circumstances. She requires a single tree, with the correct symbolic meaning, that can survive, probably untended, in Kansas soil.

A few options, but one that fits the best for an angel who became human and back again, who helped seal away the devil and inadvertently released a different one. Who met his end to save the world.

The tree that wards off evil spirits and the devil when living, but summons them when burned. The tree that represents cycles, renewal, transformation and rebirth. The tree that stands for death.

She closes her palm, whispers the name, and when she opens her hand, an elder seed rests there.

She can’t resist a little snigger at the shape. Nowadays people call them helicopters, but not so when she was young. When she was young they were always wings.

She tucks the little wing into her pocket and returns inside. She still has work to do, and it’s going to involve manual labour. Eugh.

 

*

 

Sam lets go of Dean’s arm and it flops back onto the bed. There’s no reaction, not so much as a shrug or an acknowledgement that they’ve done it – that in all likelihood the Mark and the dreams and the terror is over. That Cas’s sacrifice looks like it was worth it.

“Dean?” Sam asks gently, because he’s not fucking stupid. He knows this isn’t all good news, and he knows Dean. “Are you, uh, are you okay?” Stupid question, but yeah. What the fuck else do you ask?

Dean still doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look as though he heard.

Sam frowns, tries again. “Dean, man, you okay?”

Nothing. Sam’s starting to get worried now. Angelic possession isn’t always a smooth experience, and Dean isn’t Cas’s natural vessel. Maybe something went wrong, maybe he accidentally fried Dean’s brain in the process. Wouldn’t be the first time he fucked something up with good intentions, and Sam hates himself for thinking that, but there it is.

Sam grabs Dean’s shoulder, about to shake him.

Dean’s hand shoots up to Sam’s, grasps it in a painfully tight grip and throws it off.

“Don’t.” He grates out, somewhere between devastated and furious.

Sam feels the relief like a physical blow. Dean clearly isn’t okay, but at least he’s y’know, uh, okay. Yeah that doesn’t make sense but fuck it, one of his last remaining friends just died, he’s allowed to be a little mentally challenged.

And then everything sputters to a halt as it hits, really hits him this time – physical, visceral knowledge as well as theoretical. Cas is gone. Not in a coma, or transported to another dimension. Not Fallen, or lost. Dead.

And he must have known it was coming. That’s why he didn’t tell them. He must have known that this would be the end for him, that doing this would consume him entirely. The only sign that he was ever there a faint silver glow on Dean’s arm which Sam hopes, which Sam fucking prays won’t stay there forever. Dean’s going to have a hard enough time with the constant reminder of Cas’s sacrifice tattooed onto his arm. Let’s not make it fucking glow as well.

Sam’s legs give way and he collapses onto the bed next to Dean, who flinches away from the touch.

“Cas—” Sam starts.

Dean punches him, but there’s no power behind it. The fist hits Sam square in the chest and stays there, shaking, wobbling. Sam grabs it and pulls Dean close, embraces him. And Dean flinches, but he doesn’t try and escape.

 

*

 

Dean loses consciousness not long after, cradled in Sam’s arms. Hs body has been through a lot in recent months, and now, with no supernatural forces gouging away at it from the inside to keep it strung out and fighting, it decides it’s had enough.

Dean slumps, and for a moment Sam panics, thinking he’s going to lose them both. He heaves in deep, heavy breaths, forces himself to check Dean’s pulse and lies him down on the bed, pulls the covers over him and tries to think what to do.

There’s one obvious thing, but he can’t face that yet. He can’t go hunting for the body Cas undoubtedly left behind, assemble the funeral pyre that he knows Dean will refuse to light.

A small, treacherous part of him thinks that he should go anyway, run and salt and burn the body, as if that’ll put a halt to the torment he knows is going to come, eventually, when Dean starts searching for ways to bring him back. He knows Dean. He doesn’t let go of people he cares about, and Cas has come back from the dead before.

It’s going to be a long and hideous road, and Sam doesn’t know how the fuck he’s going to stop Dean from taking it.

 

*

 

Dean wakes up with a headache and an itching sensation on his right arm. He scratches at it, feels the rough, pitted surface, remembers.

“Hey, Dean.” He sits up, looks at Sam, standing at the end of the bed. He seems tired, and strung out, and Dean’s pretty sure he can see tear tracks on his face.

“What?” Dean grunts.

“How, uh—”

“No.” Dean cuts him off.

Sam gets what he’s saying. He speaks Dean pretty fucking fluently, and in this case, ‘no’ stands for _don’t ask me how I am, don’t give me sympathy, don’t coddle me. Don’t treat me like a grieving fucking human being and try and do what you can to help. I don’t want reassurance, I don’t want pity. I don’t want fucking anything. I just want to wallow and stew and do all the unhealthy bullshit that Cas wouldn’t want me to do._

Yeah, well, tough shit Dean.

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Fuck you.”

Sam sighs, rubs his hand over his face. He retreats to the side, grabs a small, handwritten note off the desk and brings it over, offers it to Dean. Dean pretends not to notice, even though Sam’s fucking waving it in his face.

“Dean!” Sam snaps, tired and angry and grieving and fucking having enough trouble dealing with this without his brother’s bullshit.

Dean finally looks at it, shrugs.

“It’s for you, from Cas.” Sam prompts, and his voice doesn’t break.

“I fucking know who it’s from.” Dean snaps, making no effort to take it.

“Don’t you wanna know what he said?”

“No.”

“But—”

“But fucking _what,_ Sam?” Dean lunges upwards, grabs Sam by the lapels and pins him against the wall, screams into his face. “He left me a _fucking note_ , that’s all I get. Not a goodbye or a fucking thanks for the memories. A piece of fucking paper! Well you can shove it up your fucking ass for all I care because FUCK YOU!” He pushes away, storms out of the room and slams the door.

Sam heaves out a rough, shaky sigh and runs after him. His own grief is going to have to wait, he’s got to deal with Dean’s first.

 

*

 

He follows Dean at a relatively safe distance, watches him pick up a crowbar and head for the garage. He doesn’t take out his anger on the cars this time, though. Which is a relief, as at least half of them are still out of commision from the last time Dean decided to vent his anger.

He goes outside, storms straight past the Impala and towards the treeline. And okay, Sam gets it. He’s going to take out his rage on the forest, because fuck it, one forest is just the same as another. He’s just glad Dean hasn’t remembered that Crowley, the accidental first link in this bullshit chain of events, is tied up in the basement.

 

*

 

There’s no fucking logical process to what he’s doing, he just knows that he needs to destroy something – and he’s trying to bottle it up and stop it, but he also knows that isn’t going to happen. He just needs to get as far away from the things he holds precious as he can before the volcano blows.

He makes it outside, and then he’s in amongst the trees and that’s enough of a fucking trigger to set him off. He hefts the crowbar he only barely knew he was carrying, swings it into the nearest tree with a ferocious roar. The shock and pain ricochet down his arms and he barely makes a fucking dent. It only spurs him on, he keeps lashing out, screaming in rage until he can barely stand.

He wobbles, drops the crowbar and slumps down to the ground. It hasn’t helped, he’s still vibrating with misplaced emotion, because it’s fucking easier, so much easier to be angry at Cas than it is to what, to fucking mourn him or accept that he’s gone. Or god forbid, be grateful for his fucking sacrifice.

Dean sits there for a long time, until the cold has begun to seep into his bones and he’s shivering again. Sam sits down beside him, doesn’t say a word this time. He’s just there. Solid, familiar.

“I hate him.” Dean whispers, eventually. “I fucking hate him, Sam.”

Sam still doesn’t say anything, doesn’t call Dean out on his bullshit, his blatant fucking lie.

They sit there until it gets dark, and then Sam stands up, offers out his hand to Dean. Dean wipes his face with the back of his hand – it’s so cold his nose and eyes are running apparently – lets Sam help him up.

They walk back to the bunker, footsteps almost unbearably loud in the near silence. Once back inside, Sam tries to subtly herd Dean back to his room. Dean shakes him off, makes a beeline straight for the kitchen, grabs a bottle of whiskey and throws his head back. He automatically prepares a defensive lie for Sam – it’s for the cold, to get his extremities warmed up again.

But Sam isn’t paying attention. He’s noticed the phone on the table, screen lighting up as it receives a snapchat.

Someone’s gonna have to, oh god.

He fishes his own phone out of his pocket, pulls up the name. His finger hovers over the call symbol for a long, long minute as he tries to muster up the courage. He has to now, or he won’t, and this isn’t fair on him, but it’s only a little unfair on him. Not telling her, that’d be a whole lot worse.

He takes a deep breath, hits dial.

 

*

 

Claire barely hears her phone vibrating over the noise of the bus. She fishes it out from the bottom of her bag, sees that it’s Sam. She has a quick internal debate over whether to answer it in public – because fuck knows what he’s gonna want to talk about but it probably isn’t for general consumption.

Ah fuck it, she’s only a few stops away from home anyway, she can get off and walk. It’s a nice enough day and she’s in a good mood. She doesn’t mind the idea of excess exercise.

She accepts the call, yells, “Hang on a sec!” over the rumble of the vehicle and the background noise of the rest of the public. “Just getting somewhere more private.”

She doesn’t hear Sam’s reply as she scrambles to the door, offloads herself, rearranges her bags and starts walking.

“Alright I’m safe, what do you want – because I know it’s some freaky shit, Cas is the only one who rings me to actually talk.”

Sam almost loses whatever little courage he’d managed to scrape together, stutters and comes to a halt.

Claire laughs. “You sound like you’ve seen a ghost, except, that’s your day job.”

“Claire.” He manages, and she knows that tone. She knows what’s coming next. It’s the same tone that gravely informed her about her father’s death, her mother’s. It’s the same tone that every fucking piece of bad news in her horrible fucking life has been delivered in.

“No.”

“I’m so sorry—”

“Just him, or both of them?” She cuts Sam off, doesn’t want to hear his fucking platitudes. She’s heard enough of those.

“Just him.”

“Yeah, well, why the fuck do you think I care? He wasn’t my dad.”

“Claire—”

She throws the phone into the road, drops her bag and runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll show myself out.


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise!

Claire runs until her lungs are burning and she can taste blood in her mouth. She spits it onto the floor, sways, wobbles, and slumps down on the ground. She doesn’t know where she is, how far she’s gone. She just knows that she needed to get away from Sam’s voice, from Jody, from everyone who knows her and will inevitably, pointlessly, try and comfort her.

Maybe if she runs far enough and fast enough, what she keeps repeating over and over in her head will be true. _I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. He was just some guy, some guy who killed my dad and my mom. I’m glad he’s dead._

She’s not fooling herself, but at least when all she can think about is the pain in her lungs and the ache in her legs, she doesn’t have to think about that.

She gets unsteadily to her feet, and the world spins and threatens to dump her on the ground. Okay, yeah. She’ll just sit down here on the grass for five minutes. Five minutes, just to get her breath back. Except rest is inactivity, and inactivity is space to think.

She’s a clever girl, though, and she’s learned a lot about not thinking in the last few years. She starts to pull up pieces of grass, one by one, counting them under her breath.

“One-piece-of-grass, two-pieces-of-grass, three-pieces-of-grass.”

It isn’t fool proof, things like this never are, but it gives you something to focus on that isn’t whatever bullshit is eating at you today, gives you a chance.

It works okay until someone sees the lost girl by the sidewalk, looking frantic and out of breath.

“You okay, kid?”

She ignores the voice, but it does nothing to dissuade the owner.

“Kid, you look pretty tense, everything okay, do I need to call the police?”

Claire looks up, and she must be fucking telegraphing her bullshit emotions for all to see because the woman whistles, says, “something’s eating at you, huh? Need a distraction?”

And Claire is so fucking desperate for one that she agrees, lets herself be pulled to her feet and follows a complete fucking stranger down the road and around the corner, into some local frouffy coffee shop.

She lets herself be seated at a table, still breathing heavily and winded, accepts without question the drink put in front of her. Some strawberry iced coffee concoction, not her favourite but really, in the circumstances, who gives a fuck. She gulps down too much of it at once, gets brainfreeze and grimaces in pain.

When she opens her eyes again there’s an amused face looking back at her.

“What?” Claire snaps.

“Maybe you aughta slow down.” Is the reply, but it’s said teasingly, not nagging. Claire can deal with that. And hey, she wanted a distraction. It’s almost as if God is actually listening and isn’t some shitlord deadbeat bastard who’s either long absent or very much here and intent on ruining her life.

And then the woman’s phone starts to ring. She answers it, listens grimly for a bit, and then hangs up with a sigh.

“Duty calls, I’m going to have to go. Do you have a phone, or an address, or someone who can help you out?”

“No.” Claire admits with a sneer at her own stupid presumption. Fucking figures, just when she thinks something semi decent might happen, nah.

That’s her life, and it’s probably for the best, really. Everyone who looks out for her seems to die in the end. Her mom, her dad, Randy. Cas, he was fine, and then a few months after she started to fucking trust him, started to like him and talk to him, he’s dead too. She’s a fucking poison and she’s clearly gotta get away from Jody before she ends up killing her too, but she’s also tired and strung out and she just wants to go fucking home.

“Hey, hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, y’know.” The woman gestures vaguely at Claire’s face, and she realises she’s crying. Fucking great.

Claire sniffs, digs her palms into her eyes until she’s seeing stars, until she has herself back under a semblance of control. _Don’t think about it, just don’t think about it._

“Okay, well I really can’t stay because Lord knows, I’ve never been good with timing, but here’s $50, get yourself some food, or a drink, or a phone or something. Just, look after yourself kid.”

The woman slaps the money down on the table, scuttles off in a flustered rush before Claire can even make a token effort at rejecting it.

She sighs, picks up a menu and reads it once, twice while she finishes her drink. She tries for a third time but it’s not holding her attention anymore and things are starting to slip through.

Okay, come on. Occupy yourself. She needs a plan. She’s gonna get a burner, she’s gonna text Jody and let her know she’s alive – because she’s not a total fucking shit, and Jody will be worried. What then?

Fuck it, she’s got $50, she knows some tricks. She’ll be okay. She’s just gotta keep moving. Don’t stop. Never stop.

 

*

 

  * **It’s Claire. I’m okay. Sorry.**



And Jody, fucking bless her, takes the hint and doesn’t call, doesn’t lecture or nag or demand to hear her voice. She respects the medium Claire wants to communicate in, texts back.

  * **Sam told me. Said you were pretty upset. There’s gonna be a funeral, if you want to come.**
  * **I wasn’t upset.**
  * **Are you coming back?**
  * **No**
  * **Not ever?**
  * **No**
  * **Okay, well, doors always open if you change your mind.**



 

*

 

Jody looks at her phone, swears, hopes she’s doing the right thing. She knows kids like Claire, smother ‘em and demand they return, or go and hunt them down, and that’s them gone for good. Jody still feels like a piece of shit for not chasing after her though. Bad parent, or mentor, or fucking whatever she is. Just letting that kid roam the streets.

Claire’s tough though, and this way, there’s a good chance she’ll come back home once she’s run her grief down to manageable levels. Bridges unburnt, harsh, regretful words unsaid.

Jody spins her phone around in her hand, a nervous tic, sends one more text.

  * **They’re gonna bury him on Thursday, outside that bunker in Lebanon. Sunset. You’re invited, if you want to say goodbye.**



She doesn’t get a reply to that one.

 

*

 

Claire deletes the text almost before she’s finished reading it, but it’s too late. All the avoidance techniques and mental defences in the world can’t survive it laid out so plain in writing in front of her.

Cas is dead, he’s fucking dead, and it’s probably not her fault, rationally she knows that, but that doesn’t make him any less gone.

She starts to cry, quiet at first, not audible over the sound of the radio, but it just builds and builds until finally the guy in the driver’s seat glances over at her, worried. He shouldn’t have picked her up, fucking kid thumbs him down and doesn’t even ask where he’s going, just says she wants away.

And like the dumbfuck he is, he says yes. Because man, he’s a good person and he knows a lot of people who’d pick her up aren’t. Better he takes her with him to his hometown of bumfuck nowhere, Lebanon KS – where she probably won’t be able to get into any trouble because let’s face it there’s balls all there – than  leaves her by the side of the road to get murdered or kidnapped or any of the other nasty shit his imagination is starting to supply.

And wow, unsympathetic much. She’s clearly going through some shit. He mentally chastises himself, acts like a human being.

“Hey, what’s up? You need me to stop the car?”

“No.”

“You sure, ‘cause—”

“Just keep going.” She says.

He shrugs, carries on driving. He can’t turf her out now, devil may care on the run _and_ crying. Yeah, that’s not gonna attract any weirdos at all.

 

*

 

“Hey, kiddo.” He nudges her shoulder, and she springs awake, ready to fight him it looks like. “Hey, hey, easy. Just the guy giving you a lift.”

She relaxes minutely, looks around.

“Where are we?”

“Home for me, probably the middle of nowhere for you.”

“Middle of nowhere is fine. Does it have a name?”

“Lebanon.”

She goes white, and ah, fuck.

“I can’t stay here.”

“Kid, it’s 3am. This is a town with a population of about 200. You won’t be able to leave until morning.”

“I’ll walk.”

“In the dark?”

“Yeah, if I fucking have to.”

“Please, just, uh, look, there’s no motels, but you can stay on my couch. I ain’t letting you sleep in my car – I ain’t stupid – but scouts honour, you’ll be safe. You can get up at the fucking asscrack of sunrise if you want and go then, just wait until morning, yeah?”

She trembles slightly, and he wonders what the fuck she’s running from and how the fuck it managed to be centred here. Nothing happens here. Literally nothing.

“Okay.” She agrees, reluctantly. “Just until morning, and then I’m getting as far away from here as possible.”

He nods.

“Sorry for taking you to the one place you clearly didn’t want to go.”

 “It seems to happen a lot.” She says, with more sourness than a kid her age has any right to.

 

*

 

By the time he gets up in the morning she’s gone. Unsurprisingly, there’s no note. A clean mug on the drying rack the only sign she was ever there.

He towels it dry, puts it away in the cupboard. He isn’t one for praying not really, not since he was a kid, but he senses that girl needs all the help she can get.

He bows his head, wishes her a whispered good luck on whatever fucked up journey she’s taking, and then he returns to his daily routine, tries to put her out of his mind. There’s only so much you can do, and he tried. That’s gotta count for something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but the rest of it is to come on thursday. I wanted that to have it's own chapter, you'll see why.


	34. Chapter 34

They bury Cas on a Thursday.

Sam and Charlie dig the grave, in the hollow created by Rowena. They dig it on the Wednesday, under cover of darkness and in the rain, hands slipping on shovels and boots skidding in the mud. It’s difficult, horrible work, but neither of them complain. An unvoiced current of, at least we’re alive to do it.

Sam is glad for the rain, and the darkness. It makes it feel like just another hunt, another grave to be dug up and then filled. Not like the time when he’d taken a shovel and cracked earth in Pontiac, Illinois. It’d been unseasonably warm back then, even for May, sun glaring down on him the entire time. A beautiful fucking day to bury your brother.

Cas wasn’t his brother, but he was close. So even though it makes this physically harder, more gruelling, Sam’s glad that he’s digging this grave in the cold, wet, night. It lets him switch off a little, lose himself in the messy, dirty work. Stops it from blurring together with the last time he committed a member of his patchwork little family to the earth.

He hadn’t wanted to do it this way. He’d tried to argue that Cas should be burned, that it was his right as a hunter. Rowena is the one who persuaded him out of it, in the end.

For someone who barely seemed to know Cas in life, she’s taking an awful interest in his death. Sam is grateful, it means he doesn’t have to make the decisions, he can just let her and Charlie get on with it. And he finds that he trusts Rowena – or maybe he just trusts Charlie to notice if she starts getting up to anything peculiar.

Anyway, Rowena and Cas were clearly in cahoots before his death, and if Cas trusted her enough for that, well. It probably means something, enough to trust her with this too.

And Charlie, well, of course he trusts Charlie. She was the first person to arrive. He’d told her by text. Cowardly, yeah, but after Claire and Jody, he couldn’t face anyone else. She appeared on the doorstep a couple of hours later, eyes still a little red rimmed, but fiercely determined and stoic.

And she’s been a wonder, taking the really hard things away from Sam, but leaving him with things to do, to occupy his hands and mind and keep him from going mad with idleness.

It’s why, eventually, despite Sam’s hesitance and vague misgivings, between the three of them they decide that Cas should be buried. It’s for the best, for reasons that make sense when Rowena explains them, but which slip away when Sam tries to marshal them later. He vaguely remembers something about it being too wet for a funeral pyre– and while that’s true, it hasn’t stopped raining since the morning after Cas’s death – it doesn’t seem like a good enough reason not to. Can’t be the only reason, but it’s the only one he can hold on to.

In the end, Sam stops trying. Burned or buried, what’s the fucking difference. Cas is still dead, he’s not coming back either way.

 

*

 

A minute before the funeral – or what passes for one – is due to start, there’s a knock at the bunker’s door. Rowena opens it, lets in a bedraggled and dripping Claire Novak. She’s wearing bright, mismatched clothes, and an expression that dares anyone to challenge her for flaunting normal funeral dress code. None of them do. Hell, none of them are in their formals either. It’s not that kind of occasion. Not the kind where you line up in a church or a funeral home in your best clothes out of respect for the dead and listen to someone – who probably didn’t even know the person you’re burying – spout something off from rote.

This is the kind where you have to bury your friend out in the woods because they’re not legally a person. Or the person that they are legally died a long time ago. The kind where you have to dig the grave yourself, where there’s no priest or final blessing. This is raw and difficult and painful enough without forcing people to be uncomfortable as well.

So no one tuts at Claire’s overcolourful clothes, or that they’re streaked in mud and grime from walking in the rain. First away from this place, but then back. And it wasn’t like in the movies. She didn’t meet some affable stranger on the road who gave her a life lesson and told her she’d regret it, if she didn’t say goodbye. That’s a realisation she came to herself, bit by bit, as she trudged through the mud.

She didn’t really get to say goodbye to her parents, not at a proper funeral or anything, and that hurt like a fucking bitch. Maybe this will make it better. Can’t fucking hurt to try.

Of course, turning back had only been the first step. She hadn’t actually known where the bunker was – except in the vaguest of terms, and of course the burner she’d picked up was long out of battery by that point. Because things aren’t easy, not when it comes to her life.

Still, she’d made her choice, and she wasn’t going to turn back on it. She’d just resolved to head in the right general direction, and work things out from there.

Turns out it hadn’t been that much of a problem. She should have known really, just follow the trail of freaky shit.

 

*

 

Claire had never seen the edge of a rainstorm before, but she figured they don’t look like waterfalls – a perfect line of water cascading from the sky. She’d followed the edges of it for a bit, just out of curiosity, pretty soon figured out what she already suspected. Not straight after all, curved. She’d been willing to bet if you looked at it from the air, you’d see a perfect circle.

And no prizes for guessing what lay in the middle. Real fucking subtle guys.

She’d stood there for a long minute, wavering, but only slightly. Then she’d taken a deep breath, pulled up her hood, and stepped into the rain.

 

*

 

Claire steps through the door, dripping onto the bunker’s front mat, and no one mentions the fact that she hitchhiked a few hundred miles in a fit of furious, reckless disregard for her own safety. No one mentions that she looks like she hasn’t slept in days, that her makeup has run, although in fairness to her, that could have been something to do with the rain.

They just let her in, offer her a change of clothes and some towels. She accepts, changes quickly and cleans her face. Comes back into the main hall of the bunker with shoulders squared and teeth gritted. She takes her position at the front of the coffin, next to Sam.

Rowena counts them in, and the four pallbearers lift the coffin. Sam and Claire at the front, Charlie and Hannah at the back. Sam crouches down so that the others can hold it comfortably. Even now, he’s trying to help.

Rowena opens the front door again, and the rain stops.

Sam gives her a grateful nod, and she just shrugs like it was no big deal. And maybe it isn’t, for her – if anything she looks less tired than before, but then again, maybe she’s just putting up a good front. Regardless, Sam is grateful, because digging the hole in the rain and dark is one thing, but Cas – and the people who’ve come to mourn him – they deserve good weather and as little extra misery as possible.

The walk to the grave is slow, but not quite solemn. The height mismatch between Sam and the other three verges somewhere between awkward and comical. The line between grief and hysteria is a thin one, and Charlie is struggling.

Despite this, and the slapstick potential of all that mud, they make it to the clearing without incident. There’s a motley crew there to greet them – humans, a benevolent werewolf or two, a handful of angels watching with a sad, bemused sort of fascination as they pay respect in the human way to one of their brethren.

They’re all gathered around in a semi-circle, murmuring quietly amongst themselves, shaking umbrellas and folding them away.  When they notice the cortege approaching they settle into respectful silence, heads bowed.

The coffin – a cheap, wooden thing, less than Sam thinks Cas deserves, but all they could get without too many awkward questions being asked – is set down by the grave, and now Rowena steps forward. She intones a spell under her breath, and they watch as the coffin rises slowly, over the grave and then is lowered down into it.

She produces a pot of dry soil from somewhere within her layers, holds it out and offers it to everyone in the circle in turn. One by one, the mourners take a handful, throw it onto the coffin and whisper a few words.

Claire tries to think of something to say that’s profound, or meaningful, something that isn’t just fuck you for leaving me alone, again. In the end, she just settles for simple.

“Bye, Cas.”

Last of all Rowena turns to Sam.

“It’s down to you to say the final words.” She says it apologetically, like she doesn’t want to ask him about as much as he doesn’t want to be asked. He doesn’t know what to say, and it isn’t his place to say the last words over Cas’s body.

He does it anyway, though.

“You, you did more for us than I could even begin to say, Cas. You were never supposed to be on our side, but you were anyway, every time we needed you. And I’m sorry it had to end like this, that you didn’t get your happy ending. But, but you know that we’re grateful. Both of us, even if it might not look like it.

"So, I guess, rest in peace, Cas. You’ve earned it.”

Sam drops his palmful of dirt, winces at the noise it makes as it knocks the wood.

 

*

 

They bury Cas on a Thursday, and everyone is there. Sam and Charlie and Claire and Jody and Donna and Hannah and Garth and his pack and Nora and others who Sam isn’t even sure he recognises. People who knew and loved Cas, and people who only knew him by the stories that were told about him.

They bury Cas on a Thursday, and everyone is there.

Everyone except for Dean Winchester.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering how they're going to explain all of this to Nora, Rowena is going to alter her memory to get rid of all the weird shit. Also it is actually legal to bury a body on private property, although I believe burying someone in your back garden is generally frowned upon.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY THIS IS LATE. I was at a gig on thursday with my best friend from back home, and I thought she had work the next day so I'd be back early, but she didn't and so by the time I got back I was in no fit state. I also then meant to post this earlier today, but I got distracted drawing and OOPS SORRY. (also it's 3am here and I'm super tired let me know if there are any mistakes)

Dean watches them pick up the coffin and take it outside. He doesn’t know where they’re going, refused to be involved in this charade in all but the smallest of ways.

He’d asked to pick the coffin, and Sam had looked at him with this stupid, hideous, gleeful bit of hope. Like he thought Dean was pulling his head out of his ass and coming to terms with this shit. Or just burying it, like he does everything else.

Sam had been wrong, though. Dean had picked the coffin, driven out and grabbed the lightest, flimsiest thing he could – to the disdain of the girl he bought it off.

He’d hauled it out of the car, dumped it in the war room and thought that was the end of it. It wasn’t. The end of it was Sam trying to ask what time he thought they should have the ceremony, and being answered with a near black eye.

Dean didn’t want to be fucking involved at all, but some desperate, niggling little voice in his head had said, you gotta do this, just this one thing. And it hadn’t let him fucking rest until he had. Because he doesn’t think Cas is coming back, not into that body, anyway, but he remembers what it was like to dig himself out of his grave, and yeah. Cas isn’t coming back, but just in case.

He’s been doing a lot of that kind of doublethink over the last couple days. He won’t, but just in case. Just in case this, just in case that.

Huh.

Sam seems to think holding a funeral, burying that body, it’s gonna make shit better. He’s wrong, though.

What’s the point, that body was never Cas’s. Yeah they might have come to associate it with him, but it wasn’t. He reminded Dean very forcibly of that a couple of days ago. Just a shell for a bastard made of lighting and guilt and sacrifice.

You’d be as well burying one of Cas’s t-shirts and calling that a grave.

Dean pointedly doesn’t think about the last time Cas died, where there was no body – Cas’s or otherwise – to put into the ground.  Nothing to remember him by except an old coat, another thing Cas didn’t really own, but which Dean still shunted from car to car and never could quite throw away.

That was just another hand me down shell, a cloth wrapping that came with Cas’s body, but it also served as a stand-in for everything Cas meant to Dean. A physical, tactile thing he could hold onto and grip so hard his knuckles cracked and fingers ached. Something he could muffle his face in when he didn’t want Sam to hear him grieving as though Cas’d died an innocent, without betraying them in ways large and small. As if that means Dean’s grief was any less okay, as if that made it dirty and shameful and wrong.

So yeah, hypocrite. Kinda. There’s another reason he doesn’t regard whatever muddy hole they’re off to sling Cas into as his grave, but he’s trying not to think about that right now.

The point is, if Dean let himself think too deeply about any of this, he’d have to admit that a big part of the reason he isn’t down there carrying that coffin isn’t because he doesn’t think it’s Cas in there, that he glances at it and sees the corpse of Jimmy Novak. It’s because that body has always been Cas to him, and he can’t fucking handle that right now. Not in front of people, especially.

He can’t go down there and stand with all the people who’ve been trickling to the bunker in the last few days, pretend he gives a shit about their grief and mourning and loss.

He can’t listen to them try and comfort him, or god forbid, tell him Cas’ll be in a better place (Dean’s been to that better place, and let me tell you, the only angels there were alive and shitty and hadn’t burned themselves up as fuel for a fucking binding spell)

No. He’s not thinking about that. He’s not thinking about any of that.

So while Sam and who the fuckever else prepare things, Dean stuffs some clothes in a duffel, hunts out a spare room to take up residence in. It’s not easy, finding a room in the bunker devoid of memories. It was their home, and even as big as it is, most places have some little fragment of Cas in them.

But Dean succeeds, eventually. A dark little corner, tucked up in the basement. The furniture in it just different enough to the uniform beds and cupboards and end tables and crap in the rest of the bunker that Dean doesn’t see his and Cas’s room every time he turns around.  It’s not great, kinda musty smelling, and the mattress is so full of dust that every time Dean sits down it exhales a great cloud of it, makes him cough and splutter.

He doesn’t mind that, though. Call it fucking penance. If there’s one thing Dean Winchester understands, it’s making an offering out of your own suffering.

 

*

 

He brings a duffel full of clothes, he brings another full of whiskey. Sam’s done his best to hide all the booze they have in the bunker, but Dean’s a big boy, and he’s still capable of getting behind a wheel. For now. That’s why he’s got the duffel, because, fucking excellently, he’s gone through this shit before. He knows what to expect with the next stage of Cas-specific grief. And he won’t be doing much fucking driving. Unless it’s straight off a goddamn cliff.

 ‘Cause the anger is starting to simmer down now, and he knows what’s going to be waiting for him when it does. The misery, the shame, the self-hatred and the guilt.

Cas died to save Dean. He knows that, but he won’t acknowledge it. It’s why he’s trying to stay angry, ‘cause anger at Cas he can deal with. He’s been angry most of his sad, pathetic fucking life. Maybe it’s selfish, but Dean can live with being pissed off at Cas for taking away his choice, for throwing himself on the fire to save Dean without asking if Dean wanted to be saved.

He can live with the fact that Cas chose to do it, just about, but Dean doesn’t know whether he’ll be able to live with the fact that he let Cas do it. That he didn’t notice the signs, didn’t realise. That he didn’t find another way, sooner.

Anyway, not that it fucking matters whether Dean thinks he can cope - he’s going to have to. Rule one, someone dies for you (he conveniently leaves out the rest), you don’t throw that back in their face. And Dean’s not the suicide kind anyway, he thinks. Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s wrong. Maybe there is a difference between swallowing a fistful of pills, and doing what Dean will probably end up doing a little way down the line – throwing yourself into fight after fight after fight until finally your luck runs out.

But that’s all speculation. Dean’s not there yet. He’s still at anger, just. He keeps trying to stoke it back up, provoke it and draw it, lengthen it. All he’s really doing is spending it, though.

He knows that his anger is running out, but that’s okay for now because there’s something else he can do. Something that worked, sorta, last time Cas went and died on him. Fucking bastard.

So he’s gonna drink until he can’t feel a fucking thing, and then he’s gonna drink some more.

After that, he’s not sure. He never got past the drowning in booze stage before. Maybe there isn’t a stage past that. Who knows, only time will tell.

Fuck time.

 

*

 

With a subtle gesture, Rowena returns the heaped mounds of dirt to the grave. It’s done quickly, efficiently, and Charlie wonders briefly why she couldn’t just have dug the grave like that. She must have had her reasons, and Charlie isn’t sure whether she trusts them, but now is not the time.

Another subtle movement smooths it over, and Rowena walks over, holds up something small.

“Castiel gave me this, the last time I saw him alive.” She lies, flawlessly. “It was his wish that it be planted on his grave.” Sam’s head jerks. She hadn’t mentioned this before – why not? “If he was to be buried.”

Oh. Because the wishes of the living are more important than that of those who aren’t around to see them honoured. Because telling them this would’ve been forcing their hand, because even though Cas said _if_ , knowing this would’ve made it pretty clear what he’d have preferred.

Rowena kneels at the side of Cas’s grave and pushes the elder seed into the dirt. Not at the head of the grave, but directly over Cas’s heart.

Someone lets out a gentle sob, and everyone turns to see who it was.

They all miss the faint spark that twitches around Rowena’s fingers, the whispered words she breathes out in barely audible tone.

The seed pulses back, once, twice, and then it’s covered over, and everything looks normal.

 

*

 

Claire lasts almost an hour at the wake. Almost an hour of people who barely even fucking knew Cas (yeah, like she was any better, she chastises herself, unnecessarily harshly) eulogising about him and passing stories and pretending like they even give a shit, and that this is fucking fine.

She recognises that one day she’ll probably be glad she came, regret doing what she’s about to do. But she doesn’t give a fuck for the future right now, so she ditches. She leaves the room full of people laughing and crying and being strong and not so strong, remembering Cas as he ought to have been remembered, and angels who just seem thoroughly confused by the whole situation and keep glancing over at Hannah for guidance.

Claire wanders aimlessly around the bunker for a bit. Okay, not so aimlessly. She’s looking for the one person who wanted to be here even less than she did. The guy who was so fucking in love with Cas, that he couldn’t be fucked to come to his funeral.

She finds Dean sitting in a shower cubicle, bottle of Jack in hand. He makes for such a strange, lonely picture that she doesn’t launch right into him.

“Looks comfy.” She says, with a sarcastic sneer.

“S’the only locked door Sammy respects.” Dean slurs at her.

“It wasn’t locked.”

Dean shrugs, takes a pull of his bottle. She sees another one, empty, discarded by his feet.

“Whaddaya want?” He asks, eventually.

“Came here to yell at you for not coming to the funeral.” She admits.

Dean snorts. “Go ‘head.”

She chews her lip before she replies, bites so hard she can taste blood. “Will it help?”

“Dunno.”

She reaches for the anger she’d felt when Sam told her Dean wasn’t coming, that he’d locked himself away and refused to be a part of this. It’s not there anymore. She gets it, Dean is running, just like she was. Only, he’s got a lot more to run from.

“You g’na yell at me or what?”

“I don’t think so.”

Dean laughs, as if she’s just said the funniest fucking thing in the world, pats the ground.

“Well then, pull up a pew.”

Claire sits down on the tile floor, grabs the bottle out of Dean’s hand and throws it back. He makes a half-hearted noise of protest, but doesn’t try and take it off her.

They don’t talk, content – if that word could really be used to describe either of them right now – to wallow in their own silent misery. Dean stops letting Claire take the bottle after a few passes.

She protests, spits “you’re not my dad,” at him.

Dean laughs bitterly, ‘cause he’s heard those words before, directed at someone else.

“No I’m not, but I need this more’n you do. B’sides, I aint got much left.”

She thinks he’s probably right there, so she doesn’t press the issue.

The silence wears on, not exactly comfortable, but not awkward either.

Eventually Claire decides she needs to say something, though. She leans her head back against the wall and closes her eyes – it’s easier to talk about this shit when you don’t have to look at people.

“What now?”

Dean looks at her with bleary, bloodshot eyes.

“I drink until I don’t care ‘nymore.”

“Yeah? And does that work?”

“Dunno.” He says. “Las’ time he came back ‘fore I had the chance.”

She opens her eyes, looks at him without turning her head.

“I thought he was gone for months?”

“Yeah, well. I was in the middle of’n apocalypse las’ time, had to keep myself in fightin’ shape. This time I can drink myself to catatonia when’ver I fuckin’ want.”

“You’re not gonna try and get him back?” She sounds surprised, a little worried, tries to cover it with a sniffed, “whatever.”

He grunts in response, like he hasn’t really considered the possibility. She doesn’t call bullshit, and he’s grateful for that. This is a judgement free, sympathy free, emotional bullying free zone. You are allowed to have emotions in the zone, you are not allowed to try and force other people to.

The zone is a good place.

Dean is quite drunk, he decides, as he struggles slightly to hold onto one train of thought. Not quite drunk _enough_ , but quite drunk.

There’s something clawing at the edges of his brain, something that wants him to sit up and take notice of it, and he knows if they stay here much longer it’s going to get vocal. The booze quieted it down for a while, but it’s getting braver. He needs a distraction.

He gives Claire a sideways glance. Fuck it, why not. He’s already allowed her to underage drink, why not throw in unsafe firearms practice while they do.

He gets unsteadily to his feet, holds out a hand.

“C’mon.”

She looks at him in askance.

“I wanna kill s’thing but I’m too drunk to drive or hunt.” He slurrily explains.

Things have spiralled out of his hands and he needs the control, the power that comes from using a weapon well. Holding up a gun and hitting the target dead centre, or, okay, in his current state, hitting the target.

“Okay?” Claire shrugs, wondering what the hell any of this has to do with her.

“We’ve got a shooting range, hell’ve a lot of guns, s’more satisfying n’staring at a wall.”

“You’re drunk.” She states.

“Yup.” He agrees

“Is that safe?”

“No. But I’m still gonna.”

She shrugs, accepts the offered hand and follows Dean to the range.

 

*

 

It helps, more than expected. It’s good to have a release for all this pent up stuff, she realises as she riddles the target, and the wall around it, with gunfire. Whatever it is, this complicated mess of emotions clawing away inside her chest – the one’s she supposed to feel and a few on the side that’re more sketchy, nastier, crueller – is eased a little.

She’s not sure it’s doing Dean quite as much good. His face is contorted in a snarl and he’s muttering something under his breath, only stopping to slug from his bottle of Jack – a fresh one, even though he said he was running out.

She doesn’t get the chance to be pissed off that he was trying to fucking parent her, though.

She’s just putting down her gun to stomp over and complain when Dean shrugs off another layer, down now to his t-shirt. She sees the blue glow on his arm, knows instantly what it is. That blue light was inside her, once, when it was a storm and not a dismal flicker. It knit into her flesh and took command, the might of heaven folded into a child’s body.

 

It makes sense, now. Why Dean wasn’t at the funeral, why he’s so angry and so miserable.

It’s his fault Cas is dead.

She must make a noise or something, because he looks up at her, follows her gaze to the twisted symbols on his arm. He hasn’t looked at it, not since.

Yeah.

The colour drains from his face, and he looks back up at her, quails under her furious expression. The pure and utter loathing.

And she’s right to loathe him because it’s his fault that Cas is dead.  The visceral truth that he’s been trying to avoid. Don’t look, don’t think, just run and drink and drown the cold, hard, twisting nauseating sensation curling in his guts and spreading through the rest of him, up his limbs and in his heart and wrapping itself around his brain and pressing down, cloying and suffocating, laying waste to the landscape of his body and extinguishing the anger so fucking easily now it’s been let loose.

Black and thick like leviathan slime, like if he looks down that’s all he’ll see creeping and crawling through his veins, something outside and alien that can be purged. But it’s not some fucking supernatural, extraneous force. It’s just old fashioned fucking guilt. Because he fucking killed Cas and he’s gonna have the reminder scarred onto his arm until the day he dies.

Unless he does something about it.

Yeah, well. His fucked up, drunken mind supplies him with a quick way out of that. It’s too late to erase the memory of that look, but it’s not too late to get rid of the other thing.

He pulls a knife from his boot, small, but sharp. Sharp enough to do the job.

“Go.” He croaks out at Claire. She doesn’t need to see this, she’s fucking seen enough. She doesn’t move, though. Maybe she wants to stay, watch him suffer.

“GO!” He yells, lurches forwards as if he wants to hurt her. He wouldn’t, he never fucking would. And not even because he owes it to Cas, Cas who’s fucking dead and can’t look after her anymore. He fucking loves her and he’d never hurt her.

Except he did. He really, really fucking did.

She turns and runs and he lifts the blade, plunges it in just above the blue glow. It’s fucking mocking him, and he needs to get rid of it. He can’t bear to have the reminder on his arm for another fucking second.

 

*

 

 Claire bursts into the room, screaming for Sam and Rowena. They don’t exactly race over to her, thinking she’s just upset, not realising how urgent it is.

“Dean!” She screams, and that gets them moving.

Sam’s heart nearly stops, but he doesn’t ask what, just runs after her as she darts out of the room, clearly intending for them both to follow.

Everything happens in flashes after that, he remembers it, but it’s like stop motion with most of the frames missing.

There’s the iron door of the shooting gallery.

There’s Dean, screaming in pain as he gouges a knife into his arm.

There’s Sam squeezing Dean’s wrist to make him drop it.

There’s Rowena, knocking Dean out with a spell.

And there’s the blood on the floor, so much blood.

 

*

 

Dean lies prone, knocked out by magic and kept unconscious by blood loss and the kind of stress that comes from not really eating and not really sleeping for days.

There’s a bandage wrapped around his arm, pulled tight, from where he got really fucking drunk and tried to gouge a part of it out. And Sam kicks himself for not realising it sooner, not even seeing that there was a problem here that he’d need to head off.

‘Cause Cas has two graves, really. There’s one in a muddy hole in the ground in the woods somewhere outside the bunker, the one for show, the one to mourn at. But there’s another one, the place where what’s left of the actual stuff of Cas is buried. The barest blue flicker of his grace embedded in flesh, a pulsing monument to his sacrifice.

There’s a grave on Dean Winchester’s arm, and from the looks of things it’s gonna keep glowing until the day he dies.


	36. Chapter 36

Dean wakes up disorientated, in pain, and very hungover. His mouth is as rough as a badger’s arse, and the less said about the situation in his head the better. Even thinking about moving hurts. Even thinking about thinking about moving hurts. Even thinking hurts.

He has the vague fuzzy feeling of self-disgust and panic that sometimes comes after a binge. A nice big fat warning klaxon screaming, _you did something really fucking stupid last night, but good luck remembering what it was it you were pretty fucking fucked._

Eh, at least he gets a warning of some kind. Unfortunately, it means he knows it’s not worth trying to go back to sleep. All he’ll end up doing is lying here and worrying and probably throwing it all out of proportion until an hour has passed and he’s pretty sure he somehow let Michael out of the cage and now it’s just a countdown until he’s an angel condom and the world is no more.

He throws out an arm, wincing, pats the side of the bed to try and locate Cas. He’s not there, and neither is there an indentation in the bed, or any sign of his presence.

Headache forgotten, Dean throws himself out of bed, makes it almost to the door before he remembers.

He slumps down onto the floor, tries to arrange his thoughts.

Stupid fucking bastard.

He isn’t sure whether he’s talking about Cas, or himself.

 

*

 

He’s back on the bed by the time Sam comes in.

“Dean.” His greeting sounds tired, a little bit pissed off. Huh.

“S’up.” Dean goes for cheery, because fuck it, maybe whatever Sam’s angry about has nothing to do with him. Yeah, right.

 “You fucking idiot.”

Dean waits for the punchline, the clue. Sam seems to be waiting for something too.  Eventually it clicks for him.

“You don’t remember?”

Dean shrugs, and Sam points at the bandage on Dean’s arm. Which Dean hadn’t noticed, because  yeah, he doesn’t look at that arm.

“Huh.” Dean shrugs, doesn’t make an effort to unwind it.

“Aren’t you gonna—”

“No.”

“Dean—”

“I know it’s there. What difference will it make reminding myself?”

“That bandage isn’t there to stop you seeing it, you stupid fucking child.”

“What’s it there for, then?”

“To stop you bleeding out!”

That gets Dean’s attention.

“What?”

“You can’t deal with your trauma like a normal fucking person, can’t come to a funeral and express it in a fucking healthy way. No. You decide to get blind fucking drunk, with a _child,_ and gouge a chunk out of your arm with a knife!”

Dean shakes his head, he wouldn’t be that dumb. Okay that’s a fucking lie. He’d _remember_ being that dumb.

And it’d hurt. At the moment all he’s got is a thundering headache and nauseous storm in his belly. No sharp, stabbing pain of a fresh knife wound, or dull ache of one that went too deep. Nothing.

Fuck. He’s gonna have to peel back the goddamn fucking bandage.

Except he’s too much a coward – proffers his arm to Sam instead. Sam unwinds it slowly, carefully, like he’s worried about hurting Dean.

He grunts in surprise at what he sees. The jagged wound from before, where Dean tried to stab a knife under the mark and fucking lever it out it, is gone. If it weren’t for that fact that there was still blood on Sam’s shoes from the literal puddle of the stuff he’d cleaned off the shooting gallery floor, he’d think he made this up.

Except, yeah. You couldn’t make up the look on Claire’s face.

“Sam?” Dean’s trying to make eye-contact, studiously refusing to look at his arm, even now.

“It’s healed.”

“Makes sense.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Sam snaps, realises too late where that question is gonna lead. “Wait, never mind.”

“It makes sense because there’s angel grace in there. Cas’s grace. He’s gone but he’s left a little something to remember himself by. Thanks Cas.” Dean’s tone drips with venom, doesn’t even bother trying to disguise it.

“Dean—”

“No, it’s great. See, my own personal tap of healing juice. Wonder how long it’ll take me to bleed it dry, huh? Maybe it’s infinite. Maybe I’m immortal now. Won’t that be _fun_.”

Sam knows that Dean is hurting, he knows that Dean is angry and upset and a whole fucking host of other things, but he’s had enough.

“Dean!”

“What?!” He snaps back with equal frustration.

“We need to talk about this! You tried to slice off half your arm, we can’t just sweep that away!”

“Yeah well, no harm done. What’s it matter?”

“Because you did it while Claire was watching.”

Dean flinches.

“I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, well, you did. She was the one who came and got me and Rowena.”

Dean grimaces, and he’s about to apologise, start backing down – because that was dumb. He could have bled out, wasted Cas’s stupid fucking sacrifice. But more than that. Fucking Claire. Claire Novak has seen enough shit, she didn’t need to see that.

So yeah, he’s about to apologise, when Sam speaks again. “I’m gonna have to put my foot down here, if this is what happens when you drink, you can’t drink.”

It’s the way he says it. I’m gonna have to put my foot down. Like Dean is a fucking child who’s stayed out past curfew, like Sam has any right to control his actions.

“Screw you.”

Dean gets up and storms out. He makes it nearly halfway down the corridor before his legs give out from under him – because apparently that healing magic doesn’t extend past his fucking arm. Sam hears and comes running, and isn’t that just perfect. He’s such a fuckup he can’t even get this right.

“You need to rest.” Sam says, in his best parent tone, as he scoops Dean up off the floor and carries him back to that fucking room. “But when you’ve rested, we’re gonna have to talk about this.”

Yeah, well. Dean’s usual state might be insomnia and four hour stretches, but fuck it, he’s a stubborn bastard and if he thinks it’ll get him out of this bullshit conversation, he’s gonna ramp it up to eighteen hours a day.

 

*

 

They don’t have the talk. Maybe in the space between the near fight and Dean finally giving up and admitting he’s awake, someone talks to Sam, persuades him not to. Or maybe Sam realises that it’s Dean he’s dealing with, and that the more he tells him not to do something, the more it’s gonna happen.

Dean stays in bed for days, lethargic and listless and reluctant to leave. He’s recovered from the blood loss and the lack of sleep. This is something else.

It worries Sam, more than he admits.

Charlie – because of course she’s still around, tries to reassure.

“He’s grieving, Sam. A lot of people get like this when they’re grieving.”

“Not Dean, though.”

“Well, he’s never lost someone like Cas before, has he.” She points out mildly. ‘Cause Dean’s lost every single kind of friend and family it’s possible to have, but apart from Lisa, he’s never really had a significant other to lose. And now he’s lost Cas, and not in normal circumstances. In the worst way he could.

Dean gouges out his own eyes to stop his loved ones going blind. That’s what he does. My life for theirs, my soul for theirs. He’s sacrificed and sacrificed, and that’s been his role.

No matter what you try and tell him, when that comes back around, when they try and repay him in kind, he doesn’t see that as a noble sacrifice. He sees it as his own failure.

So of course, Charlie thinks, he’d take this differently.

“Cas has died before.” Sam states.

She rebuffs that.

“The Cas that died then isn’t the same Cas that died this time. You know that.”

“So what do I do?”

“You let him grieve like he has to. Let him sleep all day if that’s what he needs. Let him drink – not enough to repeat, y’know. Don’t let him go that far, but don’t force him. He’ll kick back, drown himself to spite you.”

Sam snorts a laugh, tired.

“Yeah, that sounds like Dean.”

“You just gotta let him heal at his own pace.”

“And if he doesn’t want to heal?”

“Sam I hate to say this, but that’s his choice. If he doesn’t want to, you can’t make him.”

“So I just let him, what?”

She groans.

“I don’t know. But we’re not there yet, right? For now we just need to give him a chance.”

 

*

 

“I wanna talk to Claire.” Dean tells Charlie, because he can’t stand the sight of Sam’s face right now. It’s too, dunno. Too something.

“I- uh.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

“Why?” It comes out harsher than he means, and he doesn’t have the strength to apologise.

“I’m gonna get Sam.”

Before he can argue, she’s gone. It’s silent, and he doesn’t like it. He’s been doing a good job of filling the spaces. You can’t think when you’re asleep, and in his waking hours he’s had the radio tuned to talk stations. Good thing about talk radio, there’s always something to focus on, some words to run through your head, repeat over and over like a mantra and block the other crap from coming through.

He’s aware that’s not dealing with things, it’s just putting them on hold. Saving them up for further down the line.

That’s a problem for the future, and it’s something he doesn’t give two shits about at the moment.

 Charlie is gone for 4 minutes and 34 seconds. Not that he’s counting. Not that he’s fucking counting.

“Dean.”

“What?” He demands gruffly of Sam, without looking at him.

“It’s not a good idea for you to talk to Claire.”

“Why not?”

“She, uh, she—”

Dean gets it, but he doesn’t have the energy to put Sam out of his misery.

“— she doesn’t want to talk to you.” Sam finishes, lamely.

“She blames me.”

“Uh, a little, I guess.”

“I still want to talk to her.”

“It – it won’t be pretty.”

“I know.”

“Hold there, one minute.”

Sam leaves him alone, to silence.

 

*

 

“Dean wants to talk.”

“Good.”

“He’s not in a great place.”

“I won’t break him.”

“Okay.”

 

*

 

He doesn’t get a warning, just a phone shoved in his face and a hissed whisper, “Claire.”

He takes it, doesn’t have to wait long.

“Dean?”

“Yeah.”

“You piece of shit.”

It hurts, a lot more than he thought it would, to hear that from her.

“Yeah.”

“How could you do that?!”

“Look, I didn’t ask him to throw his life away for me.”

“But he did!”

“I can’t help that!”

“I wish you were dead instead.”

“Don’t we fucking both, kid.” His brief flare of anger dissipates, leaves tiredness in its wake again.

Claire makes a frustrated noise at the other end of the phone.

“I didn’t mean that.” She grits out.

“Huh?”

“I know it’s not your fault.”

“That makes one of us.”

“Shut up, Dean.” He does. “It’s not your fault he’s dead. Sam explained, he saved the world all that crap, but—”

“But it’s easier to blame me.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, well, don’t worry. You’re not the only one.”

“You know what, fuck that. I don’t blame you because he chose to die for you. I blame you for not giving a shit, for trying to slit your fucking wrists!”

“I wasn’t—”

“Then _what?_ ”

The anger sparks back up and Dean finds himself on his feet, hissing into the phone.

“You think it’s easy,  knowing he died because some fucked up shit got hold of me and was trying to use me to destroy the world? You think it’s easy knowing that, and just in case I fucking forget, having the reminder fucking glowing on my arm?

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself, I was trying to get rid of it.”

Claire doesn’t give a solitary fuck for Dean’s sob story, and she lets him know.

“You think it’s easy knowing my dad _died_ to give his body to an angel of the lord, and that fucking angel threw that away to keep _you, a fucking pathetic bastard a_ live.

The thing was taking you over, yeah? Well why didn’t you fucking die for it?!”

“I wish I had.” Dean spits into the phone. “I wish every single fucking day it was me gone and not him.”

“I’m glad we agree.” Claire snarls, and then there’s a shattering noise, and the line cuts.

So much for putting off the emotion. The fury surges back, strong and sweet. Dean lunges at the wall with a roar, punches it until his knuckles bleed and then tears out of the room before Sam or Charlie or fucking Rowena can come and try and restrain him.

He makes it to the dusty room where he’d stashed the duffle full of booze, grabs a bottle and runs out into the forest in bare feet, a ratty old shirt and his boxers.

He storms off in the vague right direction. Stops maybe a couple hundred yards down the path, the biting cold cutting through some of the anger. He takes a good, long swig of his Jack, savours the burning counterpoint to the cold.

He doesn’t know exactly where they buried Cas’s vessel, but hey, he’s a fucking good tracker, and it’s hard to hide where that many people have come and gone.

 

*

 

“You stupid fucking sonofabitch.” Dean says to Cas’s grave. “Stupid fucking bastard. You didn’t have to do that. We could have worked something out. Y’hear me? There’s always another way.” He laughs bitterly. “I never should have trusted you. Shoulda known you’d take the first fucking chance to get away from me.”

He upends his bottle of whiskey on the recently dug earth, pours out a steady stream and then drinks the rest.

“I hope wherever you are it’s fucking worth it.”  He says when he’s done, starts to walk away, empty bottle swinging between his trembling fingers.

He gets to the edge of the clearing and his grip tightens, he spins around and hurls the bottle at the grave. It hits the wooden cross, erected at Sam’s insistence and despite Rowena’s protest – not that Dean knows any of this. The glass shatters and the cross falls to the ground.

If Dean wasn’t so angry he’d probably appreciate the symbolism. As is, he just storms off into the woods.

 

*

 

He comes back the next day, cleans the broken glass away and rights the cross, picks it up with his bare hands and doesn’t care about the blood

 


	37. Chapter 37

To say that Crowley is tense would be an understatement. Every time the door squeaks or he hears footsteps, he thinks that this is it, the end. Here comes his demise –not with a bang but with a Winchester.

A week goes by, and he doesn’t get any less tense. As the demon who turned hell into an eternal queue, it’s the kind of torture he can appreciate. No horror can be as great as that which the imagination inflicts, no pain is as terrifying as the one you think up for yourself in anticipation.

Also, he’s really fucking bored.

Eventually someone comes to put him out of his misery. Rowena, he can tell by the clicking of her heels, the just-shy-of-pain niggling in his back teeth. Magic, or just age old dread, he’s never quite sure what causes it, but it kicks up whenever she gets within a hundred yards.

“Mother.” He greets, cordially, which is a lot, he thinks, given the situation.

“Fergus.”

“You here to ritually kill me, by any chance?”

She looks blank for a moment, and he knows it’s carefully crafted, designed to hide a laugh.

Not that she hides it for very long.

“Oh, god.” She sniggers. “I forgot, with everything. Oh, darling. No. I’m not here to kill you, silly boy.”

“Why not?”

“I was lying, about you being a part of this. At Castiel’s behest, of course.”

Crowley doesn’t interrupt, wonders if this is some strange new torture? Not a very effective one. He isn’t scared, more puzzled.

“You started this off, granted, but other than that, you had nothing to do with it. Anyway, that’s all tidied up now.” She dismisses it so easily, as though the whole thing had been some trifling little inconvenience, and not the literal end of the world. Again.

“How?”

Rowena grins even wider, childishly gleeful at being in the know when her son isn’t.

“Darling Castiel, so noble. He sacrificed himself, sealed the gates shut using his grace and the Mark of Cain. Clever little poppet. All that stuff about you and sacrifices and whatnot, that was just a distraction, so Dean’s guard would be down.”

Understanding comes suddenly to Crowley, and he’s almost impressed. He’s been played, and played well.

“Castiel, he possessed Dean?”

“You should have seen the look on Dean’s little face when he realised.”

“Then why am I still being held here?!”

Rowena clucks her tongue.

“Darling, they’ve forgotten about you, and I think that’s for the best. You did start this whole thing off, remember?”

“I—”

“I’m surprised Dean hasn’t paid you a visit yet. He’s not a very happy boy.”

“Ah, bollocks.”

Rowena nods in agreement, doesn’t say anything else

“Are you here to free me?” Crowley asks. He already knows the answer, but still. Stranger things have happened.

“Of course not. You think I want to make an enemy of the Winchesters? Besides, I have a little pet project I’m working on, can’t just abandon it and go on the run.”

“What pet project?”

“That would be telling.”

Crowley sneers.

“So why are you here, mother?”

“Can’t a woman visit her only son?”

“You’re not a woman, you’re a harpy.”

“So cold, Fergus. If you’re going to be like that, I’ll leave you to rot down here in peace.”

“Fine by me!”

She exits the room with a flourish, flicking her hair over her shoulder in pantomimed offence. Crowley gnashes his teeth. It might seem like she only came here to gloat, but he knows her better than that. There’s a reason, he’s sure, but he hasn’t got time for that now. He’s got bigger problems to worry about. If what she said was true, well.

Eventually Dean is going to remember who he’s got locked in the basement, and Crowley knows that isn’t going to be a pleasant experience.

However you look at it, whether accidentally or on purpose, this is definitely Crowley’s fault.

Bugger.

 

*

 

Dean keeps Crowley waiting for long enough that he’s pretty sure he’s developing an ulcer. Which would be impressive, as demons don’t get ulcers – they reckon it’s something about all that sulphur in hell, it builds up a resistance. That’s just speculation, though, hell’s scientists – because some people have passions too deep to be flayed out of them – tend to want to work on much more exciting projects. There’s a worrying line in smuggling nuclear materials that Crowley has been struggling to stamp out for years.

Demons are one thing, demons with that kind of firepower. No. To all things an order, and that definitely strays outside the order. What’s the point in having hell if the earth is a nuclear wasteland, honestly. Some demons have no foresight, or sense of consequence.

Musings on one of hell’s many illicit trades aside, Crowley spends a lot of his time planning and worrying. The worrying, because up until now he just expected a relatively straightforward death, and now he expects torture, bargaining, revenge. The whole shebang. But he’s also plotting – because incredible agony though he may be about to receive, the good thing about being tortured is it means you’re not dead, and if you’re not dead, that’s an opportunity.

Still, despite all that time spent thinking about it, Crowley isn’t quite sure what he expects when he finally hears Dean’s footsteps coming down the corridor. If pushed perhaps he’d offer up anger – a storm of wrath and blood, righteousness and fury and immediate violent fervour.

Instead Dean saunters into the room, calm as you please. Crowley takes a moment to study him, see if he can gauge which way this is going to swing. Dean seems mostly okay – dark shadows under his eyes and could do with a shave and a shower, perhaps, but nothing too drastic.

He doesn’t look like he’s been tearing apart the earth trying to bring Cas back, or throwing himself into an attempt to commit suicide by hunting. He just looks tired.

The silence stretches on, tense, uncomfortable.

Dean is the first to break it.

“Wasn’t expecting you to still be here.”

“I couldn’t exactly go anywhere.” Crowley rattles his chains with a bored look, trying to convey just how fed up he is of being locked up in uncomfortable basements. He’s the king of hell. That makes him an important prisoner. You’d think they’d at least give him a book, or a sofa.

Dean shrugs, scratches absently at the bandage on his right arm. Over where the Mark used to be, Crowley notes with interest.

“Been getting into fights, have we?” Crowley feigns ignorance.

Dean doesn’t buy it, but it doesn’t rile him up, either.

Crowley knows Dean, better than Dean would ever want him to, and he can tell there’s something up. There’s something a little off about him. Like someone’s sucked out most of his animating energy and just left a vague memory of emotion to hold him upright, stop him slumping onto the ground and never getting up again.

Well, grief affects everyone in different ways, but Crowley wouldn’t have pegged Dean to be a moper.

“You know why I’m here.” Dean says.

“For my delightful company?” Crowley sneers back.

Dean doesn’t reply, no witty retort or angry snap. It unnerves Crowley, more than anything.

“Get it over with then!”

“Hmm?”

“Kill me!”

Dean blinks, startled, like it hadn’t occurred to him. And then something else comes over his face, a queer little expression that Crowley can’t quite place.

“Why’d you do it?” He asks.

“Do what?”

“All of it. Purgatory, the nightmares. Why?”

Now it’s Crowley’s turn to be startled. He hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t expected most of this fucking conversation.

“You betrayed me.”

“I did?”

It stings, that Dean doesn’t even seem to remember.

“I trusted you, and you go and hand the Blade to Castiel.” Crowley snarls.

“So it was just revenge, for that?”

“A little. More I wanted to torture you, make you miss what we had – make you miss being a demon. I was trying to bring you back into the fold.”

Dean laughs, grating and bitter. It’s the first real emotion Crowley’s seen him display.  He pauses and Crowley thinks that’s all the response he’s going to get until Dean snorts, pulls a beer out from what looks like his back pocket.

He flicks it open with a carbonated hiss, takes a long drink.

“Yeah, well, congratulations. I definitely fucking miss being a demon.”

That gets Crowley’s attention fully now. Maybe, just maybe, things could end up going his way after all.

“You want to be a demon again?”

Dean shakes his head.

“That’d be throwing away Cas’s sacrifice.”

“Cas’d want you to be happy. If you being happy meant you being a demon…”

Dean snorts.

“For the king of hell, you’re not very good at this subtle thing.”

“Neither are you. You’re not down here to kill me, or get revenge. That means you want something.” And Crowley suddenly realises why Dean is being so weird, so cagey. “You want to make a deal.”

Dean shrugs.

“Last one turned out all right. Hey, got Sammy back, met Cas ‘cause of it. Maybe I can use one to get him back, too.”

Crowley laughs.

“Dean Winchester, you never cease to amaze me.”

Now that’s it’s out in the open, Dean seems less tense, starts to spill it all out.

“Yeah, well. I have terms, capiche. I want him back, and I want him whole and himself – no funny business or I _will_ kill you.”

“I’m listening.”

“And none of this ten year crap either. This is a deal you don’t collect on until I die – and you can’t try and hasten that along.”

“Doesn’t sound very fair.”

“I had my unfair deal, and I have you by the balls here.”

“I don’t think you do. I have something you want, something you want a lot.”

“I’m offering you me. That’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it? Soon as I’m dead, you can collect. You’ll just have to wait.”

“And if I said no? If I said ten years, and away and shite?”

“Then I take you down to the crossroads and summon another one of your demons. I kill you in front of them, and offer to put a clause in my deal that means they become the reigning king of hell.”

“That wouldn’t work.”

“Do all your demons know that? Hell, I know Cas tricked one into making a deal that didn’t have a single consequence for him. Maybe I’ll try that too.”

“If you thought you could pull that off, you’d have already done it. You wouldn’t offer me your soul if you had any other option.”

Dean shrugs, takes another pull of his beer.

“Fine. You got me, but this is all you’re gonna get. I won’t bring Cas back just to make him watch me get ripped to pieces in a year or ten. I’ve been on the other side of that now, I’m not going to make him experience it too.”

“But you think he’ll be fine with knowing you’re going to hell when you die because of him?”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“He’s an angel, Dean. He’ll notice you don’t end up in heaven when you finally, permanently, die.”

Dean twirls his bottle between his fingers, doesn’t make eye contact with Crowley.

“We both know, there’s a better than good chance I’m not going to heaven when I die.”

Crowley has no idea what to say to that. He knew Dean hated himself, he didn’t realise it was quite this much.

“Maybe I’ll sneak in by accident or oversight, but we know that’s a slim chance. The angels hate me, ‘cause I fucked up their plan, caused Cas to fall, turned into a fucking demon and slaughtered a load of them, _and_ managed to get Cas killed. So many fucking reasons. I can’t see them letting me past the pearly gates.

“Whether I deserve it or not – and I probably do – I’m likely going to hell. I think Cas would understand why, if he couldn’t find me in heaven. He’d never even have to know I made a deal.”

“And if he comes looking for you?”

“He won’t have the power. It took a lot of angels to rescue me last time. There’s no way he’d be able to convince any of them to try it again.”

“He might come on his own.”

“He wouldn’t be that stupid.”

“I don’t think we’re talking about the same Castiel.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll have what, fifty years to think of a solution to that.”

“You could ask me to bring him back as a human.” Crowley suggests.

“I could, but I don’t think I have the right.”

“You’re offering up your eternal damnation for him. I think you have the right to bring him back as a parrot if you wanted to.” Crowley sneers.

Dean finishes his beer, with a look in Crowley’s direction that says, man, you really don’t fucking get it, do you.

“So. Will you do it?”

“Darling, nothing would give me greater pleasure.”


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My wifi is fucked I had to tether my phone to my laptop to post this let me know if anything fucked up and I'll try and fix it with stolen pub wifi tomorrow bleaughhhhhhhhh

Dean blinks, like he’s startled that Crowley agreed. And in honesty he kinda is. He expected a lot more wheedling and negotiating before they got to this part. And he definitely didn’t expect Crowley to outright agree to his terms either. He thought he’d get maybe 15 years, maybe a bit more. Clearly he was underestimating just how much Crowley wants his soul.

“Let me guess, I gotta let you go first?”

“No, but my safe passage will be one of the clauses.”

“Fair enough.”

“And if you kill me to try and escape the contract it’ll result in your soul being claimed immediately.”

Dean nods.

“So, how’s this work, then?”

“Bring me paper and a pen and I’ll show you.”

“That’s it? That’s all you need?”

“That’s how contracts work. I write it, we both sign it, and the magic of the crossroads takes care of the rest.”

“Huh.”

“Feel free to not do what I asked.” Crowley says pointedly, and Dean nods frantically, jogs out of the room.

He’s searching for a pad of paper when he meets Sam in the hall.

“Dean. You’re up and about?”

“Don’t need to sound so surprised.”

“Yeah, well, I mean, you haven’t been, much.”

“I am now.”

“Yeah, I can see, uh, yeah. Look, it’s just, it’s good to see you, y’know. Vertical.”

“Okay. Are you done being weird now?”

Sam laughs. “Uh, yeah. I guess, sorry. Do you wanna, I dunno, go for a drive, or?”

“Nah.”

“Okay, um. Well, what do you wanna do?”

“I want to get out of this conversation.”

Sam nods awkwardly, decides to back off. Wouldn’t be great to weird Dean out so much he goes back to being a shut-in now that he appears to have finally got up.

 

*

 

“What took you so long?” Crowley sneers when Dean finally returns.

“Had to shake Sam.”

“He doesn’t know?”

Dean looks at Crowley like he’s insane. Okay, yeah. Fair enough.

“I got your crap.” Dean throws a spiral notebook and a half used biro at Crowley.

The king of hell frowns at his materials.

“I’m supposed to bring an angel back from the dead with this?”

“You said it was all the magic of the crossroads. You could write it in piss on the floor and it’d still work as long as we signed it, right?”

“You have no sense of the grandiose. I’m about to do something only God has done before.”

“And you definitely have the power to do this? To raise an angel from the dead?”

“Me? No. Hell on the other hand. Deals are complicated, but they’re much more powerful than any individual demon.”

“How?”

Crowley sighs, wonders how much he should divulge.

Eh, in for a penny.

“Contracts don’t take their power directly from the demon they’re written by, otherwise we’d have hordes of dead demons and no-one willing to work the crossroads. Each contract takes a little, barely noticeable and easily recoverable, power from as many of hell’s souls as it needs. Most requests are simple enough, require less of the overall power of hell than will be gained by claiming that particular soul. You’ve got to invest a little, to get a lot.”

“So this won’t even register?”

“Oh god, no. Even spreading the weight out over the entirety of hell, I imagine a whole load of souls are going to go pop. Not enough to weaken me, though, and I’m the king. I can do what I want. And I want your soul.”

 “If this doesn’t—”

“Relax. Now, would it kill you to get me a table?”

 

*

 

Writing demonic contracts is quite fun to do, but not very interesting to watch. Even so, Dean seems rapt. He’s standing over Crowley, eyes flicking back and forth over the page as the demon fills it with scribbles.

He also interrupts constantly, until finally Crowley can’t take it anymore.

“I CAN’T WORK UNDER THESE CONDITIONS!”

“Tough.”

“This is a work of art, and I can’t perform if I have you standing over me muttering about sub clauses.”

“Then don’t put so many in.”

“I have to. It’s a legally binding deal. I have to describe every last possible eventuality, including but not limited to, the clause where if I try and hasten your death, it voids the contract without killing your precious angel.”

“Oh.”

“Oh is right. Now either leave, or shut up!”

Dean doesn’t leave, but he does shut up. Momentarily.

Crowley sighs, scrunches up the sheet of paper he’d been working on and flings it into the corner of the room.

“Why are you throwing it away?”

“STOP INTERRUPTING.”

Crowley takes a deep breath, attempts to rebury himself in the trancelike state required to create a contract of this depth and complication. It takes hours, but, without Dean’s constant questions pulling him out, he finally manages to outline all the various clauses and sub clauses and addendums and blah blah blah he’s a demon not a lawyer.

He covers every last possibility, and runs through several notebooks, but that’s fine. With a smug look he waves a hand over the pages and they resolve themselves into a long parchment scroll.

Dean raises an eyebrow, like what was all the complaining about plain paper if you could just do this, and then Crowley screams and his eyes roll into the back of his head.

 

*

 

Crowley wakes screaming too, but that has less to do with the contract and more to do with the holy water Dean splashes him in the face with.

“What was that for?!” He howls, as Dean hands him a towel.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“I am going to enjoy watching you suffer on the rack.” Crowley sneers.

“Yeah, whatever. Come on. Let’s get this thing over and done with.”

Dean picks up the pen and scrawls his name at the bottom of the parchment in rough, messy writing. Crowley can’t resist a raised eyebrow.

“Not even going to read it first?”

“I read it while you were writing it.”

“Did you—”

“No, I didn’t change any of the terms while you were out. I’m not a fucking demon.”

“I don’t remember finishing it.” Crowley says, suspiciously.

“Well you did, and then you did some wavey hand thing and it turned all old timey and then you passed out.”

Crowley pales.

“Hand me that contract.”

Dean obliges with a shrug, and Crowley reads the entire thing, from start to finish. He gets paler by the moment, and hell no, Dean does not like that.

“What?”

“I’m not telling you until you’ve disarmed.”

Like that’s going to make Dean want to disarm.

“Crowley.”

“Remember what I was saying, about the magic of the crossroads?”

“Yeah, power beyond any demon blah blah.”

“Well there’s more to it. Contracts are tricky, especially in the writing stage. You don’t always end up with what you thought you were writing, one you’ve um, converted it.”

“What the fuck, Crowley?”

“The contract I wrote, it was impossible.”

“I thought you said—”

“I know what I said! But I was wrong, kind of. This is a revised version, one that will work.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is in the original contract I was going to use some of the grace embedded in your arm to rebuild the angel from the ground up.”

“So what?”

“This contract requires the whole of it, not just some.”

“I’m not seeing a problem here. My magic tattoo is gone, Cas is back. Win fucking win.”

 “If I pull out one of the threads….”

Dean understands.

“The whole thing starts to unravel.”

“Precisely.”

“And we’re back where we started, portal, monsters, blah blah.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t care.”

“What?”

“Do it. We’ll find another way to fix it, we always do.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Yeah, it is. Do you want my soul or not?”

“It’s _not that simple._ The power it would take to undo what Castiel did, it would use up nearly all of the souls in hell.”

“You don’t think it’s a fair trade?”

“Neither will you! That’s just to get that grace out of your arm for the blueprint. There wouldn’t even be enough souls left to bring him back. At best you’d get a brain dead human – at worst you’d get some kind of feral angelic monster with no higher function but all the smiting powers it could ask for.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I wish I was, Dean. I really do. I would give a lot for your soul, but the entirety of hell, the entirety of my power, is not one of them.”

But Dean is Dean, of course that isn’t going to be enough to make him give up.

“Okay, so don’t undo the thing. Just build him from scratch.”

Crowley laughs, a little bit of hysterics mixed with actual genuine _I can’t believe you’d possibly say that_ disbelief.

“You want me to create an angel? From scratch? I’m not _God._ ”

“It’s not from scratch. You have his body.”

“I have his _vessel!_ ” A vessel which he knows Rowena is currently tampering with and therefore, even were it possible – which it isn’t – it would be too tainted with whatever she’s brewing up to use to bring Cas back.

“So what, you’re saying you can’t do it?”

“Can’t, won’t. Take your pick, Dean.”

Dean’s temper finally snaps. He lashes out at Crowley, punching him square in the face.

It isn’t satisfying, Crowley barely seems to notice the blow, sneering, “beating me up won’t change this.”

If he’s trying to goad Dean, it’s working. All that rage, all that grief and fear and hurt that he’s been trying his hardest not to feel are all coming out now, a toxic, violent catharsis.

He punches Crowley’s face again and again, screaming with every blow. He’s being too loud, and he knows it, he knows Sam or someone is going to hear, come down and find out what he’s tried to do, but that doesn’t slow him, or shut him up. If anything it eggs him on.

Crowley is bleeding heavily, but completely unfazed by it. He smirks up at Dean.

“Feeling inadequate, Winchester?” He figures the angrier Dean gets, the more likely he is to do something stupid, something that might lead to Crowley’s freedom.

Dean keeps on punching, aiming for Crowley’s face and chest. He throws the table out of the way and lands a particularly satisfying blow to Crowley’s gut. And finally, finally it looks like Crowley is starting to feel something as he lets out a winded little huff.

A trick, of course, as Dean discovers when he gets too close and Crowley whips the chain of his manacles up and around Dean’s neck. He pulls tight, cutting off Dean’s air supply and very nearly crushing his throat entirely before releasing slightly. Not enough to give him any leeway, though.

 “This is why you always lose, Dean. You’re far too emotional. Now, set me free, break the trap and no more of this deal nonsense, and I promise to let you out of here unharmed.”

 A funny look comes over Dean then, one that Crowley does not like at all. And maybe he’s rapidly rethinking the piss off Dean Winchester plan.

In a movement almost too quick to process, Dean grabs something out of his pocket and shoves it into the side of Crowley’s neck. Crowley feels it like a cold, numbing shock, spreading out from the entry wound and seeping throughout his entire body. A devil’s trap bullet.

His hands fall slack by his sides, and Dean shrugs out of the chain with a strange, cold look in his eye. He isn’t angry anymore, the pain seems to have brought him back to himself, but there’s something nasty and calculating in his expression.

He turns his back on Crowley, picks up the contract and reads it through as quickly as he can. It all looks kosher, as far as he can tell. Crowley doesn’t seem to be lying about the cost to hell, but to be honest, a billion demons going pop. It’s not gonna weigh too heavy on Dean’s conscience.

“I’m giving you one last chance to sign this, Crowley. Before things get nasty.”

Crowley doesn’t reply.

Dean shrugs, moves over to a bag on the floor and starts to pull things out. Crowley strains to see, wondering what’s to come.

He sees a knife, holy water, salt.

Torture it is, then.

 

*

 

Dean pours holy water over his knife, fighting down the furious little voice in his head telling him that he needs to stop, that this is wrong and not what Cas would have wanted. Because fuck Cas. He doesn’t get to make choices anymore. If he didn’t want Dean to do this, he should have been here to stop him.

His hand trembles as he holds the blade, but he tells himself it’s nothing. He’s doing the right thing here, Crowley’s a fucking demon. It’s not like he’s about to torture an innocent, and he’s not doing this for fun. It’s just one of those harsh fucking things. Gotta break a few eggs and all that crap.

“Torture, Dean? Really?”

“Shut up.”

Dean presses the blade against Crowley’s cheek, watches dispassionately as the demon hisses and the flesh there bubbles slightly. He draws the knife down one cheek—

And he’s grabbed from behind, yanked away. He struggles, but Sam’s grip is too tight, iron and unforgiving in his fury.

Dean isn’t sure if he’s relieved or not.


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have no gas (for you americans, that doesn't mean car fuel, that means no heating or cooking) so there is a higher than usual chance of typos/ mistakes in general for this chapter - please do let me know if you spot something. Also the wifi is still down so I tethered to my housemate's phone to post this so honestly, who knows if it worked.
> 
> Not to be that adult, but seriously, if you're renting, check everything. And make sure your landlord can't threaten to terminate your contract without your consent when you kick up a fuss about things they're legally obliged to do.

Dean doesn’t struggle. He lets Sam drag him down the corridor, throw him bodily into one of the empty rooms. He hasn’t seen Sam this angry in a long time, and he gets exactly fucking why, but all the energy he briefly managed to tap into is gone now, and he doesn’t even have the strength to feel ashamed of himself. He just wants to go back to fucking bed and not wake up until he doesn’t care anymore.

Fucking likely.

Sam stands in the doorway for a moment, looks at Dean lying on the floor, making no effort to get up.

“I can’t even fucking talk to you right now.” He spits, disappointed, disgusted. Whatever.

Sam slams the door shut, and a few moments later Dean hears the sound of something heavy – a bookcase maybe – being dragged in front of it.

Like Dean gives a shit. He’d tried not to pin all his hopes on Crowley, he’d tried to go into this sceptical and believing it wouldn’t work, but lets face it, if he hadn’t thought it’d work he wouldn’t have tried it in the first goddamn place.

And then Crowley had seemed so sure of himself, so certain he could do it.

And he could, kinda. And maybe all the souls in hell wouldn’t have been enough, but I mean, Dean’s got a fucking vault of monster souls to tap into as well. Why shouldn’t that count for something?

 Well, maybe it still can. All he’s gotta do is get hold of that contract, find some random crossroads demon to sign it. Crowley said it’s not about the power of the individual demon so fuck it, he doesn’t have to go right to the top. In fact, it might be better to go for the piss-weakest, most pathetic specimen he can find. Something easily coerced and bullied.

Which is all very well, but he’s got to get out of here first, and he might have a kernel of another plan forming, but that doesn’t mean he’s capable of getting up off the fucking floor to enact it right now.

It’s not even the pleasant kind of lying on the floor, when you’re hungover as fuck and the cold tiles are the only thing tethering you to the world but you’re so grateful for them it’s kind of okay. This is the gone ten rounds with a fucking vampire nest and passed out in the motel before you could eat something kind of lying on the floor. The kind where your blood sugar is shot and you’ve got about five minutes before your body starts to digest itself, but worse somehow.

That’s a solid, physical sensation, a weakness and a tingling in your muscles. This feels deeper, deep enough that if he didn’t know how bullshit that was, Dean would say it’s in his soul. But nah, it can’t be that. Might be his internal organs, though. He briefly wonders if he’s getting paid back for the heart attack that should’ve killed him all those years ago, or maybe it’s his liver waving the white flag, like thank you and goodnight I did my best but now it’s time for me to bow out, good luck.

Yeah, fucking likely.

_Huh, I wonder what the fucking problem is. Gee, what’s happened recently that could me making me feel shitty and listless?_

Apparently he’s still got the energy to sarcastically backchat himself. So there’s that.

 

*

 

Eventually Dean scrapes himself up from off the floor. He still doesn’t have the verve to bust out of here, but he also knows how to fix that. He’s just gonna think about all the things that piss him off and eventually the anger will take over and maybe he’ll be okay. And yeah, Cas wouldn’t approve, like so much of what Dean has done since. Since that. But Dean’s running the same rationale he did every other time. You didn’t want me to go off the deep end, you shouldn’t have fucking left me here.

He wishes Cas had burned him out to a fucking husk.

 

*

 

Dean spends a couple of hours cycling through the “piss Dean Winchester off” greatest hits, calling at all stations from _the Mark of Cain made me do it_ , through to _Cas possessing me with tricked consent_ – with a couple of stopovers at classics like _Sammy didn’t look for me while I was in Purgatory_ , and _Cas stood in a ring of flame, looking back at me as I walked away_.

And yeah, he’s mixing his metaphors, but right now, who gives a shit. Because, well, the thing about using anger as a shield and a driving force and a fucking safety blanket to hide in is that eventually you overdo it and become kinda immune.

Apparently.

Shit that used to enrage him barely brings up a flicker right now – of anything, anger, regret, misery or whatever. He just feels kinda blank. A fucking outline with no shading.

But apparently a lot of bullshit metaphors.

So yeah, he can’t seem to get angry by himself, but that’s alright. That’s what little brothers are for. And his does not disappoint. Because eventually, obviously, Sam decides his parting shot wasn’t enough, comes back to have it out.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” He snarls at Dean, and that’s good. Dean knows how to use other people’s rage. He’s been fuelling off it, dragging it deep and internalising it for years.

Dean pushes himself into seating position, elbows on his knees, and glares up at Sam.

“I was thinking fuck you, why is it any of your business?”

“Crowley showed me that contract. I think you breaking the world because you miss Cas is my fucking business.”

“Screw you, Sam.”

“You wanna what, throw away his sacrifice just because you can’t handle being alone?”

“It’s called not giving up on someone, Sam. Something you don’t fucking know anything about.”

That hits deep. Deeper than Sam would ever admit. He’s stalled for a moment, can’t come up with anything in response, and then he snarls.

“I thought you were dead! You’re supposed to give up on people when they’re dead. You grieve and you pick up and you get on with your life. You don’t try and bring them back at any fucking cost.”

“It would have been worth it.”

“No, it fucking wouldn’t! You wouldn’t even have got him back, you’d have got a husk.”

“I would’ve made it work, figured something out.” Dean sighs the words out, furious tone slipping away.

Sam is playing his part beautifully, and it should be enough for Dean, to let him channel it and hold onto it and drag himself upright, but for once it just isn’t. Dean can’t sustain it. He’s not upset with Sam, he’s just trying to provoke him, say the worst things he can so that Sam’ll do the same back.

And maybe Sam understands this, because he calms abruptly, takes a deep, measured breath.

“I know you’re so determined to take what he did as a personal attack, Dean, but it wasn’t. He saved the world, that’s gotta count for something. He wouldn’t want you undoing it.”

Dean snorts.

“You ever think maybe the world doesn’t want to be saved?”

That throws Sam.

“What?”

“We save the world, get a year – at best – of peace, and then something else, usually worse, pops up. You know the phrase, flogging a dead horse? Yeah, well, maybe it’s time to let the fucker rest in peace.”

“You don’t really think that.” Sam asserts, a little desperately.

Dean doesn’t know what he fucking thinks these days, but yeah, why not. He shrugs, and Sam shakes his head, backs away, out of the room.

Well, so much for that then.

 

*

 

“Claire called again yesterday.” Charlie says, far too casually.

Sam sighs. “What did she want?”

“She wanted to talk to Dean.”

“Yeah, ‘cause that went so well the last time.”

Charlie shrugs. “She’s looking for closure. Dean might be the only place she can get it.”

“Dean just tried to sell his soul for a reanimated puppet version of Cas. The only thing he’s going to give her is a load of bad fucking ideas.”

Charlie can’t really argue with that.

“What’d you tell her?” Sam asks, after a sight pause.

“That he was asleep.”

“She’ll try again.”

“Yeah.”

“And what are we gonna say?”

“We locked him up, release date pending, will reconsider on evidence of good behaviour?”

Sam snorts out a little half laugh. The kind you make to acknowledge what the other person said was meant as a joke, but you don’t really find it that funny.

There’s been a lot of that going around recently, a lot of people trying to use humour as a coping mechanism, and a lot of people who’re too strung out and fucked up to appreciate the jokes.

“What’re we gonna do about him, Sam? I mean, we can’t keep him holed up in there forever.”

Sam grimaces.

“What other choice do we have? You saw what he tried to pull.”

“Yeah. That, that was some pretty fucked up shit.”

“I thought he was getting better. He was up and about, at least, and I was so hopeful – and then it turns out he was just fucking backsliding, trying to undo it all.”

“Is locking him up really gonna help, though?”

“No. But neither is letting him run riot—”

“I dunno, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of harm he could do.”

“Charlie, didn’t you read—”

“Yeah, I read the contract, and listened to what Crowley told us. No demon on earth or hell is going to enforce that thing willingly.”

“So?”

“So what’s the harm in letting Dean free?”

“He might still manage it.”

“How?”

“The same way he nearly did with Crowley – torture.”

“You think Crowley is going to let any crossroads demon answer Dean’s summons, now that he knows what he wants?”

Sam pauses.

“Okay, yeah, but what about regular demons?”

“Can regular demons make crossroads deals?”

“Azazel could.”

“He wasn’t a regular demon.”

“You wanna take that risk?”

“So what, we just keep him locked up forever?”

Sam shrugs. He doesn’t have an answer for her. He doesn’t have a fucking answer to any of this.

 

*

 

Claire Novak is not stupid. She knows there’s something bullshit going on. Dean is asleep, her fucking ass. He’s avoiding her, and that’s not allowed. She’s the one with the right to be pissed off, she’s the one who gets to decide whether she and Dean are talking.

She’s the one who thinks it’s about time they all stopped moping and tried to get Cas back, and knows there isn’t anyone else who’s likely to help her.

And if he won’t talk to her on the phone, well, she’s just gonna have to fucking go there herself. It’s not like the bunker is far – she and Jody and Alex are holed up in a cabin nearby – some sort of family bonding experience that was probably supposed to take her mind of things but so far has just been a lot of stilted, sympathetic looks and hideous awkwardness.

And maybe that’s kinda her own fault for refusing to engage, but so fucking what. It’s her grief and she’ll deal with it how she wants to.

 

*

 

Claire doesn’t _deliberately_ sneak into the bunker, except that she definitely fucking does. The last thing she wants is for someone to warn Dean that she’s here so that he can fuck off and hide somewhere else.

That creates its own problems, though. Like the fact that Dean isn’t in his room and it’s not like she can just fucking ask someone where he is.

She creeps around for a bit, and gets a big fat nowhere.

Eventually she strikes gold though, comes across Sam and Charlie having what could best be described as a heated discussion. She tries to sneak in close enough to hear what they’re saying, but they’re both hunters and she’s trying to be careful. She doesn’t hear much, but she hears something about Dean and Crowley, a contract, and a locked room.

She’s a bright girl, puts it together pretty quickly.

Looks like Dean is going to need less persuading than she thought – when she eventually gets to him, of course. He’s no longer the main priority though, she’s going exploring first.

 

*

 

Dean wakes with his heart pounding and his mouth dry which is, y’know, a change from the seeping lethargy. Not one he’s sure he likes, though. 

There’s a rap on his door, and he so nearly ignores it. He’s got nothing he wants to say to Sam, or Charlie or Rowena, or whoever the fuck it is.

“Dean. Are you in here?”

That sounds an awful lot like Claire Novak, but what the fuck would Claire goddamn Novak be doing here?

“Dean, you asshole, I’m not moving this stupid goddamn cupboard unless you answer me.”

“Claire?” He gets up hesitantly, loathe to drain all his newfound energy arguing with an angry teenager

There’s a loud scraping noise, followed by a curse, and then the door is open.

“Quick, we gotta get out of here. Sam probably heard that.”

“Uh, not to be ungrateful, but why the fuck are you busting me out?”

“Heard you had a plan to bring Cas back. Now c’mon.” She turns to run.

“Wait.” He grabs her arm. “I’ve gotta get something first. Something important.”

“You mean this?” She pulls a messily rolled ream of parchment out of her belt. “I knocked Crowley out, but he’ll sound the alarm as soon as he wakes.”

Dean stops arguing, sends a quick, facetious prayer to the patron saint of things that are definitely too good to be true, and just goes with it.


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY ABOUT LAST WEEK. I had the stupid flu and I couldn't read anything longer than a sentence without getting muddled so I couldn't edit. BLEAUGH.

Dean covers the box over with dirt, takes a step back. He doesn’t have long to wait, a rough, gravelly voice greeting him from behind.

“Dean Winchester, now why am I not surprised?”

He turns around, grimaces at the sight of the demon’s meatsuit. Caucasian, just a bit shorter than Dean, messy dark brown hair and vivid blue eyes. Not Cas, obviously, but close enough to make a point.

It knows what it’s here for, then.

The demon saunters up to Dean, all _I’ve got something you want_ arrogance – as far away from the real Cas as it’s possible to be. Not that it matters to Dean’s stupid fucking sweaty palms and rapidly developing migraine. Dude doesn’t even look that much like Cas, just shares a few basic physical characteristics.

Doesn’t really matter, though. It’s not supposed to be a perfect likeness, it’s just supposed to unsettle, to upset.

It’s doing a good job.

Dean pushes the feeling aside – he’s gotta do this, for Cas. He puts on his game face, matches the cocky swagger. Don’t let ‘em see the damage – he’s got plenty of practice at that, should be fucking flawless by now.

“I’m here to make you the deal of a lifetime, _buddy_.” Dean says.

The demon smiles, too many teeth and too sharp. Dean’s stupid fucking brain can’t help firing off leviathan comparisons.

“Your terms will have to be good. It’s a big job.”

“The biggest.” Dean agrees.

“Contracts like that, they take a lot of doing – not just any demon can write them.”

“You’re not just any demon, though.”

“Even for a crossroads demon, this kind of thing is tricky.”

“Huh.” Dean scuffs his shoe in the dirt, idly tracing out a pointed star. “Not any demon can write the deal I want.” He looks up, direct and piercing.  “Any demon could sign it, though.”

The demon narrows its eyes.

“Is that a threat?”

“No. It’s an offer.” The demon cocks its head and it throws Dean for a second, but he ploughs on. “I have a contract here – written by the king of hell, so you know it’s favourable to the demon who signs it. Terms already laid out and agreed. All you need to do is authorise.”

The demon squints at Dean. This is either the offer of a lifetime, or a trap. Smart money goes one way, and it’s not on Dean’s trustworthiness.

“And if Crowley was happy to write this contract, why wouldn’t he sign it – why are you offering it to me?”

Dean shrugs, the picture of nonchalance, but he’s fucking sweating inside. He’s a good poker player, he’s not sure whether he’s good enough for this.

“I don’t owe Crowley any personal allegiance. I’d as easy do the deal with anything that has the power to sign it.”

“But why not Crowley?” The demon presses.

“My brother got in the way before we could both sign, locked us up. I escaped, but it was too risky to go after Crowley too – he was much better guarded.”

The demon makes a considering noise.

“And how do I know I won’t get captured too?”

“It took Crowley an entire day to write this thing. Long as you’re quicker signing it than that, we should be golden.”

The demon purses its lips. “I’ll want a sweetener. Something extra for the risk.”

“You haven’t even looked at the contract yet.” Dean rolls his eyes.

“Doesn’t matter. I want—”

“I’ll give you hell.”

The demon gawps. “This is a trap.” It asserts.

Dean shakes his head. “I don’t care who runs hell. Fuck, I could do with a king who owes me a favour.”

The demon narrows its eyes. Stolen eyes, Dean reminds himself.  

“Who said I’d owe you a favour, this is a big job.”

Dean shrugs. “So is overthrowing hell.”

The demon tips its head in agreement.

“I want to see the contract.”

“I want a binding agreement that you won’t run off with it.” Dean shoots back, derisive.

The demon looks Dean up and down, measuring, and then shrugs.

“I, Orcus, punisher of broken oaths, hereby agree not to run off with this contract.” Orcus snaps its fingers and a red, sulphurous spark jumps up and then sinks back into its hand. “Sufficient?”

Dean nods, offers the rolled up scroll. He was hoping Orcus wouldn’t read it, that Crowley’s handwriting would be enough. He should have known better. Fucker is a contract demon. They don’t do anything lightly.

Orcus reads through the entire thing, and then it starts fucking laughing.

“Nice try. You almost had me going.”

“What’s the issue?” Dean asks through gritted teeth.

“The cost. I’d have dominion over an empty hell.”

And okay, Dean had thought only Crowley have been able to see the true cost – it’s not written anywhere in the contract that he can see. Must be some bullshit demon thing, of course. Because it couldn’t be that fucking easy, could it.

Still, there’s always a plan b.

“Wouldn’t stay empty for long.” He tries, because you never know.

Orcus just raises an eyebrow.

“Worth a shot.” Dean shrugs. “So, what about if I told you I had another power source for you to tap into?”

“I’m listening.”

Dean peels the bandage off his arm, and goddamn it, he doesn’t fucking flinch.

“All the power of purgatory is tied up in here – gateway to a lot of souls. More than enough, don’t ya think.”

Orcus considers. It’s been around for long enough that it was once considered a big player in demonic circles. It understands that demons rise and fall on the slimmest of chances, the wildest of risks taken by their enemies. It would be nice – more than nice – to get revenge for all the wrongs suffered on the way down.

And king of hell does have such a nice ring to it.

It reaches out and touches the three way seal on Dean’s arm, flinches back and then starts to laugh again - nothing deliberate or calculated this time, just wild, hysterical bursts.

“What?” Dean growls, drawing his knife.

Orcus spits on the floor, it fizzles, a distinct smell of sulphur and scorched earth rising from the ground.

“You thought you could hide the fact that signing this contract would be the end of the world?”

“It wouldn’t—”

Orcus snaps its fingers and the contract ignites. It burns to dust before Dean can even make an effort to save it, dropping to the floor in a miserable pile of ash.

“No deal, Dean Winchester.”

Dean snarls, lunges forwards with every intent of ripping the goddamn fucking demon limb from limb, but Orcus is done playing. It suspends Dean in the air, does the same without even looking to Claire as she tries to dart forward and stab it in the back.

“You nearly had me, so nearly. You’ll make a good crossroads demon when,” Orcus corrects itself with a little shake of the head, “If you die.”

“What?” Claire registers the correction, but her question is ignored by Orcus, and Dean is too busy fighting to be free, kicking and scrabbling at the air, throwing punches and muttering exorcisms. Orcus puts a stop to that quick-sharp, stuffs Dean’s throat up so that he has enough to focus on trying to breathe, never mind sending anyone back to hell.

“But unfortunately, Dean, I’m not going to be the one who destroys hell and unleashes purgatory, just because you miss your boyfriend.”

“What do you mean _if_?” Claire is still stuck on that. Something isn’t right here.

Finally it seems like Orcus is listening to her. It cocks its head again, drags her through the air so that she’s floating alongside Dean.

“He hasn’t told you?”

“Told me what?” Claire asks, wide eyed and a bit freaked out. Because on the one hand, demons can’t be trusted, but on the other, Dean fucking Winchester keeps secrets like it’s a competitive sport and she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s going to hear next.

Dean’s stops kicking and his eyes bulge. Seems like he’d rather like to be in on this conversation. Orcus doesn’t lessen the pressure. If he wanted to talk he should have thought of that before he started throwing around exorcisms, shouldn’t he, then.

“That little tattoo of his, it’s not just keeping all the bad things locked up nice and safe.” Dean grunts something that sounds a little like shocked resignation. Orcus ignores him, carries on. “It’s busy changing him, too.”

Dean makes a noise in his throat, a low groan. Interesting. Orcus relents, releases the pressure enough that he can talk. Dean coughs for a good thirty seconds, long enough that Orcus’s meatsuit’s sense memory has it wanting to check its watch. Finally Dean seems able to communicate again, croaks out:

“What now?” In such a pissed off, resigned tone, that Orcus gets it immediately.

“You don’t know either.”

“Know _what_?” Claire nearly screams with frustration.

“This is just too good.” Orcus folds over and starts laughing again instead of answering her. The distraction makes its power waver for a second, and Claire tries to take advantage of it, spring forward. Orcus stands up, quicker than any human, throws her back and against a tree with a flick of its wrist.

“Careful, now. I wouldn’t want to hurt you, after all, you’re the only one here who isn’t functionally immortal.”

Dean’s stomach drops. He knows what that means, had to listen to Sam fucking rabbiting on about telomeres and hydra (not the interesting kind) and transdifferentiating jellyfish and how it’s so cool, that these creatures that don’t get old, don’t die unless they get killed.

“How?” He croaks, and he pretends it’s because his voice is raspy from the strangling, and not the gut punching idea of having to live forever – without Cas, and then Sam, and then Charlie, and Jody, and Donna, and Garth, and Claire and every single fucking person he has left.

And then without every single person he meets after that – everyone he tries to use to plug up the hole.

Everyone Dean loves dies and leaves him, that’s a known quantity, but it’s not fucking ironclad, not like this. There was always a chance before, some vague hope that someone, usually Sam, could slip the net, cheat fate and stick around. Sam left a lot, but he always seemed to circle back.

This, this is fucking finality. This is the grossest kind of two finger salute you could give to a man who’s biggest fear isn’t death, but life by himself, with only his own thoughts for company.

Cas thought he was giving Dean a gift. He couldn’t have been more fucking wrong. He was giving him a sentence.

“Looking a little upset there, Dean.” Orcus interrupts, and Dean looks up, vision blurring and slipping out of focus. There’s a roaring in his ears, pounding and screaming. He doesn’t know what to do, he can’t deal with this, he can’t. He fucking can’t.

The numbness is coming back, gnawing at his chest and he wants it to spread, wants it to take over, but it won’t. It’s just fucking staying there, won’t even be fucking helpful and spread up far enough to drown out his thoughts.

He vaguely sees Orcus swaggering closer, like it knows Dean’s no threat. It reaches out, grasps Dean’s chin and forces him to meet its stare. This blurry, it looks a lot like Cas, and Dean chokes on the name, trying to slip off his tongue, out through his clenched teeth.

“Don’t hurt him!” Claire yells, frantic, forgetting that telling a demon not to do something is tantamount to an invitation.

Orcus turns to her.

“Oh, honey. I couldn’t if I tried.”

It kisses Dean on the lips, gentle, almost tender, and then vanishes.

Claire and Dean collapse to the ground, and Dean immediately rolls over onto all fours and starts to retch uncontrollably.

There’s nothing left in his stomach to throw up except a thin, stringy trail of bile that tastes an awful lot like sulphur.

 


	41. Chapter 41

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unedited because of a surprise night out where I left at a reasonable time and my phone died and I ended up lost as fuck in london. Will revisit and re-edit when I get the chance.

Dean spends a couple of hours throwing up a mix of saliva and bile. It’s not pretty, for him or any observers. You’d think throwing up nothing much would be easier, but it’s not. What little there is to come up is concentrated, pure acid. His voice is gonna be a few octaves lower by the end of this. Even more of a growl.

Claire Novak half watches from a distance, swearing under her breath and cursing the day Dean was ever born. All her problems trace back to him, in a roundabout sort of way. The same way you could say all Dean’s problems trace back to Cain and Abel. Or his mother’s deal, all those years ago.

She’s collateral damage.

But she’s collateral damage with a vested interest in keeping Dean alive. Because hell, he isn’t fucking working too hard on it himself, and someone needs to make sure Cas’s god damn fucking sacrifice – and via a convoluted route, her dad’s – is worth it.

In the bullshit sacrifice chain reaction going on here, her dad is the first link. She’s got to protect that – although not at the cost of becoming the last link herself. There’ll be no cyclical ending in this story, no Claire giving herself up for the greater good to close this bullshit circle.

As she tries to distract herself from Dean and the smell of vomit, she idly wonders if there was something in the meat of him, her poor, dead father. Some little niggle that seeped from the spirit into the flesh of him, laid there dormant until Cas came along and it made the return journey – into his spirit, or whatever equivalent it was that Castiel had (grace, she supposes.) Some chemical in the bones of Jimmy Novak to which prolonged exposure makes you want to die for love.

It seems too big a _fuck you_ from the universe to suppose that both her father and her father figure were just men whose nature was to sacrifice themselves. Too big, and too shitty a coincidence.

She wonders if it’s in her too, if it’s passed on from father to feckless progeny. Or if maybe she’s more of her mother – someone who puts herself first. She hopes so. She’s seen what sacrifice like that does to a family, grabs a lump of it with both hands and wrenches it apart, leaves the remaining pieces bloody edged and scabby.

Maybe that’s what’s waiting for her – maybe it’s built into her bones, just biding its time. Until she finds the Dean to her Cas, the Claire and Amelia to her Jimmy.

Maybe she’ll be fighting off that urge her entire life.

Not today, though. She’s not closing that goddamn fucking circle today.

Today she watches, makes sure that Dean doesn’t lie down and choke to death on his own stringy trails of not quite vomit. And then, when he’s done, when he wipes a hand across the back of his mouth and stands up, shakey and fucked up, she puts on her best mom voice.

“When did you last eat?”

“None of your fucking business.” He shoots back, dusts his hands off on his jeans and avoids her gaze.

“It is if you’re gonna pass out of me. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s no way I can carry you to the nearest hospital.”

He shrugs. “Probably don’t even need to fucking eat ‘nymore. You heard what the bastard said.”

“He said you can’t be killed, not that you can’t starve.”

“What are you, my fucking mom?”

Claire rolls her eyes, grits her teeth.

“So what’re we doing now?”

“ _We_ aren’t doing anything.” Dean growls, “ _I’m_ summoning back that motherfucking demon.”

Claire doesn’t argue, just steps aside and lets Dean go through the motions, spraying out patterns on the floor, burning ingredients.

Orcus doesn’t come back. Not the first time, not the second, not the eighth. Even when Dean moves onto normal crossroads summonings, no dice.

Eventually Claire kicks out at a tree in frustration, rounds on Dean.

“Let me try.”

“Yeah, uh. No.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause Cas woulda fucking killed me.”

“And what? He’d be happy about _you_ putting your soul on the line?”

“Yeah, well, what the bastard doesn’t know.”

“So why not me?”

“You’re different.”

“Bullshit.”

“You can swear at me all you fucking want, kid. I ain’t letting you try.”

“And if I tried by myself?”

“I’m not telling you how.”

She kicks the tree again. Dean doesn’t try and stop her, lets her take out her rage on the trunk.

“Feel better?” He asks, when she eventually winds down.

“No.” She snaps, in a tone a tone of _no freaking duh._ “So what now?”

“You heard the bastard. I’m ‘ _functionally immortal.’”_ He uses mocking quote marks. “Might as well put that to good use – I’m going hunting.”

“Sounds good.” Claire straightens up, crosses her arms in a fucking challenge.

“Nuh-uh kiddo. I’m going alone from here.”

“You need backup.”

“No I don’t. I can’t be killed by normal ways – that means I can do shit you can’t even dream of, go places you that would rip you apart. I’m not letting you come along to heaven with me and get killed. Capiche?”

“No I don’t capiche.” She snaps. “If that thing on your arm is what’s making you immortal, I bet you can be killed by whatever can kill the three things that make it up.”

“And you’re telling me this because?” Dean asks, tiredly bemused at the non-sequitur.

“Because an angel blade can kill demons, monsters and angels. So how is going to heaven any less risky for you than it is for me?”

Dean swears under his breath.

“You are too smart for your own good, you know that.”

“You need someone to watch your back, someone who knows about angels.”

Dean scrubs his hand through his hair. She can see him fighting with himself. He needs backup, and he can’t call on Sam or any of his usual partners for obvious reasons. But at the same time, he doesn’t want to take a fucking teenager on this crusade.

Then again, she’s got a vested interest. She wants this almost as much as he does.

“Fine. You can come.” She doesn’t punch the air, doesn’t want to look too triumphant and make him change his mind. “We should rest up first, though. It’s not an easy route to heaven – we’ll probably have to kill quite a few angels.”

Claire snorts. “Trust me, that, I don’t have a problem with.”

 

*

 

They eat a silent and tense meal of shitty diner food, and then retreat to a motel for the night. The receptionist at the first place they try gives Dean such a skeevy look that they bolt immediately, worried they’re gonna get the cops called and have to try and someone convince them that this is wholly innocent and Jesus Christ why would you even think that?

The second place they have better luck at. The kid behind the counter more understanding, or just plain not giving any shits.

“So, what’s the plan?” Claire asks, for what feels like the hundredth time. She gets brushed off again for the hundredth time, too.

“There is no plan.”

“You must have some idea.”

“Shut the fuck up and go to sleep.”

“Not until I know what we’re actually doing.”

Dean groans something under his breath about little brats who won’t do as they’re told, refuses to be drawn further. He’s only half listening anyway, got his head buried in some occult looking book he dredged out of the Impala’s trunk.

It looks so obviously showy and impressive that Claire’s convinced it’s bullshit, just some kind of excuse to avoid talking to her. She’s half right. It’s a book on angel lore. Not necessary for tomorrow’s trip, but judging by what the demon said – that Dean is being _changed_ ,  he feels like he should bone up as much as possible on what the fuck he might end up as.

He needs something to occupy his mind, anyway. ‘Cause let’s face it, he’s rapidly running out of fucking ideas. The list of things that can bring back the dead isn’t expansive. They’ve already crossed demon well and truly off the list. There were a couple of pagan gods who dabbled in that kind of shit, but Lucifer iced most of them years ago. Angels, possibly, hence the trip tomorrow.

God, too. But God hasn’t fucking been listening so far, so why would he make an exception now.

It’s gotta be Metatron. He has to be the key to this. He’ll know, and he’ll demand some ridiculous price, but it’ll be worth it.

 

*

 

Sick of being ignored, Claire gets changed in the bathroom, turns off the light and plunges Dean into darkness on her way back.

“Hey.” His protest is feeble at best.

She shrugs, movement just about visible in the dark.

“Tough shit. If I need to sleep, you do too.”

“I don’t need to sleep.”

“Why do you keep yawning then?”

“Because this book is fucking boring.”

He protests, but he does close the book. Claire hears the double thump of boots hitting the ground, and then the rustle of covers. She wishes she’d brought an ipod, or some headphones or something. The silence is oppressive, just the tired, heavy rasp of Dean breathing, uneven. A dripping tap somewhere off down the line.

 

*

 

Dean opens his eyes and immediately knows he’s dreaming. There’s something about the quality of the air, the saturation of colour.

The dead, trenchcoated bastard smiling fondly at him.

“What the fuck do you want?” Dean goes for blunt, aggressive. It’s not like this is really Cas so there’s no point being nice. At best it’s a fucking misguided flailing of his subconscious, at worst it’s something big and evil trying to fuck him up.

Either way, Dean isn’t happy to see him.

“Dean.”

Or, at least, he wasn’t until he heard Cas speak. How can something as simple as a voice be so devastating? Dean’s got fucking goosebumps and that clenching feeling is back in his chest, like someone’s constricting his lungs.

He fights through it though, forces himself to speak.

“You’re not real.”

Cas’s smile falters a little, and of course Dean’s heart reacts in turn. He makes a snap decision, because fuck it, this might not be real, but it feels like it, and he hasn’t seen Cas’s face, his real face – alive and vivid and constantly in motion – for so long. He wants to fucking drown in it. He wants to run his fingers over every last fucking pore, just to feel his touch one last time.

He lunges forwards, pulls Cas into a hug, tries not to tremble at the familiar weight in his arms. He doesn’t kiss him, even though he wants to, so much, more than anything. He knows that would be going too far, that’s something he isn’t allowed.

Cas has other ideas, brings their lips together sweet and tender and Dean can’t resist, even though he knows this is wrong, that he shouldn’t, he can’t dredge up the reasons why in the face of the one thing he wants most in the god damn fucking world.

Eventually Cas breaks away, rests his forehead on Dean’s, and this is all so familiar, and Dean is so torn. His pulse is racing and his palms are sweaty and he doesn’t know whether it’s because he’s overjoyed or terrified. There’s probably a word for it, he thinks, the fear of taking something good because you know how impermanent it is. It’s what stopped him going to Cas for a long time, and he never really overcame it - not fully. It was Cas who pulled him through, tried to persuade him.

Now, though. Now what? Because he’s going to have to wake up some time.

“We need to talk.” Cas says, and Dean can feel the vibration rumble through him.

“About what?”

“You need to stop.”

There it is. Dean doesn’t reply, pretends he didn’t hear – determined to soak up what little fucking joy in this moment that he can.

“Please, Dean. You can’t carry on like this.”

“You can’t stop me.” He tries for bold, challenging. It just comes out fucking desperate.

“I know. I can only ask.”

Dean pulls away, all traces of quiet intimacy and happiness ebbing away now. This vision, or whatever it is, of course it isn’t here for his pleasure, or to let him say goodbye to Cas properly. It’s to tell him off. Because he always does the wrong goddamn fucking thing.

“I’m getting you back.”

“I died for a cause, Dean. Don’t throw it away.”

Dean flinches at the bluntness.

“I’m not throwing anything away. I’m just trying to get you back.” He tries to defend himself, but they both know it’s a lie.

Cas doesn’t admonish him, though. He just looks at Dean with those horrible, sad fucking eyes.

“Goodbye, Dean.” He says, puts a hand on Dena’s shoulder and Dean starts to panic, because no, it can’t be fucking over already. He doesn’t care if Cas spends a fucking hour just standing there telling him what an idiot he is, that he needs to back the fuck off. As long as he’s there, as long as it’s not just Dean, on his own.

“Don’t leave me, not again.” He swallows what little, barest fragment of pride he has left and begs, reaches out to Cas, takes his face in his hands and looks him dead in the eye. “Please, not yet.”

Cas unhooks Dean’s fingers, shakes his head with a rueful smile.

“Time to go.”

And he’s gone, and Dean is left standing, alone, feeling even more fucking bereft than before.

 

*

 

Dean sits up in bed, takes a deep, shuddering breath. He gets up and makes his way – with a silence born from years of experience not waking people in motels – to the bathroom.

He examines his face in the mirror, trying to see any sign that he looks different, any sign that what the demon said was true. Nothing obvious. If he had more time he might experiment with a razor, make a small nick somewhere and see if it heals. Just because he can’t die, doesn’t necessarily mean he has accelerated healing powers. He could be more demon than angel in that respect.

But he doesn’t have time so he just splashes some water on his face to get rid of the salt stains, returns to the bedroom and packs up his things.

At the bottom of his bag is a set of handcuffs. He clicks one around the bed, the other around Claire Novak’s wrist. She stirs slightly, but doesn’t wake.

He throws his stuff into the Impala, fires off a quick text to Sam with the name and room number of the motel, and then he’s off.


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late. I went to see Deadpool (finally) and then one quick drink turned into getting the nightbus home at 1am and when I finally did make it back, I fell asleep on the sofa.

The drive to heaven is long and boring. And full of missed calls.

Sam works fast – or he was closing in. Regardless, it’s clear from his voicemails – Dean listens to every one, as a kind of penance, or maybe just because he has nothing better to do – that Sam has a very fucking pissed off Claire as his charge, so that should slow him down a little. He’ll be expending as much effort holding her down as he is going after Dean.

He must know where Dean is going – Dean was sloppy, that he knows. Should’ve lied to Claire, told her he was starting with purgatory or something. She wouldn’t’ve believed him, though. Maybe she doesn’t believe the truth either, maybe she thinks that as it was clearly his plan to shake her all along, he laid out a false trail for her. Maybe she’s too busy being fucking furious to care.

Maybe, just maybe, she’s planning on letting him get away with this one, let him get to heaven unencumbered. After all, she wants Cas alive more than she wants him locked back up in Sam’s makeshift prison for _goddamn self-destructive bastards who can’t leave well enough alone_.

Whatever. Now, possibly too late, Dean’s gonna start being cautious. Or not cautious. He’s hurling himself as fast as he can towards heaven with no real plan or thought – so not cautious, but he’s doing it on the assumption that Sam is hot on his trail – so cautious. Kinda.

It’s all just fucking semantics, anyhow.

 

*

 

Dean parks a way away from the playground that now serves as the entrance to heaven. He sits in the car for a while, but not idly. He doesn’t even know if this will work anymore – is his blood human enough – but Cas’s was. And hey, Cas can’t even be pissed at him for this if – when he gets back, ‘cause the fucker did it to himself too. A long time ago. A hard fought, bastard eternity ago.

It’s a small enough flashback but it’s enough to make Dean wonder, as he carves a banishing sigil into the meat of his arm, does he wish he’d never met Cas? The celestial bastard who saved his life and ruined it all at the same time. Does the balance weigh even, that joy, that pain? Does one cross out the other?

It doesn’t work like that. He knows. He fucking knows.

Dean finishes the sigil, flexes his hand a couple of times and idly watches the wound to see if the flesh knits back together. It stops bleeding quicker than it ought to, but other than that it seems to be normal. He’s got a little while, it seems.

Of course he has no idea how this is gonna work. The sigil is for emergencies only, he can’t have anyone knowing he’s here. Much as he’d like to just magic the heavenly bouncers out of the way, he figures if he does they’ll go to heaven, and, well. He can’t do this if there’s an alarm out for him, can he?

He wonders where a banished angel would go if he used it inside heaven – another part, maybe? Maybe it wouldn’t work at all. It’s something though, a safety blanket or a good luck charm. Something to rub his fingers against absentmindedly, ground himself.

He wonders if using it will expel the angel from him, too. He doubts, though. Cas wouldn’t have been so sloppy. Doesn’t mean Dean won’t try it though, as a last resort if all this goes sideways. There’s a whole long list of things he’ll try if this goes sideways. That’s how he works. Dog with a bone, hunter on a trail, John  Winchester after a demon. He’s got this between his teeth now, and he’ll either drag Cas back from the other side by force of will alone, or he’ll get pulled over himself.

 

*

 

Dean slits the throat of the first angel with gritted teeth, knowing exactly how fucking much Cas would be pissed at him for his. Double whammy, he’s putting himself in danger, and he’s killing angels. Maybe on a subconscious level he’s hoping he’ll piss Cas off enough from beyond the grave that he’ll come back through sheer force of rage alone. Manifest himself to kick the shit out of Dean and then stay forever. Yeah, Dean. That’s fucking likely.

Killing the first angel alerts the second, a tall and imposing type who manages to put out that impression in spite of the actual stature of her vessel. There’s something huge about her, and Dean gets the feeling she’s no ordinary guard. She wasn’t put here because she’s expendable, she was put here because fucking no-one is getting past her.

 He gets a grace period of about a second where she clocks it’s him, debates what to do. There’s no sentiment here, no sense that they know each other. Dean guesses at conflicting orders – someone must have known he’d come here, ordered he be granted safe passage. Maybe they didn’t expect him to come armed and homicidal.

Too late to approach this peacefully now. He lunges forwards and is surprised when he isn’t met slash for slash. His blade bites into flesh, but it’s not a mortal wound, just a graze along her arm. Her attention focuses, piercing and absolute, and he can tell she wasn’t expecting it, either. What do you know, looks like he’s reaping the benefits of this fucking curse already.

He moves to press his advantage, but she’s on her guard now, whips away to take stock. She makes a violent flicking gesture with her hand and a barrage of wind whips up around Dean. It doesn’t unbalance him like she clearly intended though, just rips the bandage off his arm, reveals his mark.  Her attention zeroes in on it and she narrows her eyes, frowning like she wants to get a closer look. Because of course she wants to fucking see it. Seems like everyone but Dean does. Yeah, well, they can all go fuck themselves.

He doesn’t give her time to examine him, launches forward again, on the attack. She meets him this time, blow for blow, and there’s no disguising the furious look his speed elicits.

“Abomination.” She mutters under her breath, and great, that’s both Winchester brothers marked down as impure in heaven’s book. I mean, Dean’s been pretty sure he’s damned for a long goddamn time, but it’s never nice to have confirmation, y’know.

Not that he has much time to dwell on all this, because lets face it, this is not an autopilot slash and hack fight where Dean can afford to zone out, this is very much a case of if I don’t reach zen levels of swordfighting focus I am going to die kinda deal.

Dean and the angel trade blows for longer than he thought possible – he’s definitely got more stamina than he used to have, but it’s not enough. He’s got more than when he was fully human, but his reserves are still finite, whereas this angel seems like a fucking machine.

He feels the fight start to slip away from him, slash by slash. Sure they might have been close to evenly matched that the start, with the element of surprise and all, but now Dean’s arms are burning and he knows he’s getting sloppy. He makes an aborted lunge for the angel’s chest, finds his blade – Cas’s goddamn fucking blade because yeah, he likes to torture himself and screw him, at least it feels like a fucking connection – knocked out of his grip and to the floor.

He doesn’t give up though, he dives to the ground, scrabbles for it. The angel stamps on his hand, probably breaking a few fingers if the pain is anything to go by. Dean howls in agony, concentrates on the wound and tries to will some healing juice into it. It doesn’t feel like it’s working, doubly so when the angel twists her heel.

“Submit?”

Dean doesn’t say anything, scrabbles for the blade with his other hand, even though he knows it’s pointless, even though he knows it’s obvious, that she’ll see what he’s doing. He should have picked a better place for the stupid sigil, because it’s on the arm that’s free, and unfortunately his elbows don’t bend the right way to activate it.

He expects another stamp, or to be pulled away entirely. He doesn’t expect her to pick up Cas’s angel blade, spear it through his palm.

As symbolism goes, he thinks, before the pain sets in, this is pretty heavy handed.

And then there’s no room left in his head for any kind of thought at all.

 

*

 

Dean wakes up in an unfamiliar room. He’s used to that. What he’s less used to is the pain. Sure, he wakes up in pain a lot, a dull niggling ache from this injury or that, sharp, itching bite of a healing stab wound, that sort of thing. This is much worse, agony settled deep in his bones – so relentless he’s not even sure he can pinpoint the particular source, or if it the source just happens to be every goddamn nerve ending in his body and maybe a few borrowed from other people too.

He tries to think past the pain, focus on his surroundings. The room is clinical, glass and steel and tiled floors, with a ring of flame around the edges. Holy fire, if he had to guess, but for what purpose he doesn’t know. He’s strapped down in something that feels like a fucking S&M dentist chair – hand cuffs and leg restraints keeping him pinned down tight. He makes a token effort at getting free, but he can already fucking tell that he isn’t going to manage it, even before he struggles. Still, he’s gotta at least try.

Eventually he gives up, decides to save his energy. The fact that he isn’t dead hopefully means that the angel who decked him wants him alive and so will come back at some point to talk to him, and maybe then he can work out some way of getting loose.

Unless of course she tried to kill him and wasn’t able – because fuck does it feel like she tried – and her solution is to just lock him up and leave him here to rot. And not even in a useful place, like the cell next to fucking Metatron’s. No, alone in the most boringly mundane and unimpressive prison ever to have existed. Sounds about right.

Or maybe, maybe he’s fucking dead and this is what his hell looks like now. No flayed skin or tortured souls, just Dean Winchester, a little bit of pain to spice things up, and his own fucking thoughts for the rest of time.

 

*

 

Dean doesn’t have too long to wait before the angel returns. There’s a crackling noise and the flames go out – and instantly Dean feels a thousand times better. No pain, no nothing. Well, that’s new. And he had no idea holy fire was so painful for angels – makes looking back to _that_ memory of Cas even worse, knowing he was standing there in physical agony as well as all the rest, while Dean walked away, angry and hurt and betrayed by the one guy he’d trusted not to do that.

God, but Cas has previous for fucking up Dean’s trust. He almost should have expected this.

The female angel enters the room, expression pinched and lip curled in something like disgust. She doesn’t look at Dean, makes her way over to a table by the wall and dumps a bag onto it. She empties it slowly, pulling out each item with gentle care and laying them out on the surface as though holy, precious.

Dean knows from experience that there’s nothing holy about the tools she’s unpacking. Before hell just looking at these things would’ve put the fear of god into him – and he can’t help a little bark of hysterical laughter at the phrasing his brain chooses to throw up –  now he can look at them all with a sort of detached, clinical evaluation – rate them in order of pain and severity. Rate them in order of effectiveness, too. He knows which one you should start with, which to follow up with to get the most pain with the least amount of damage.

He thought he’d buried those memories, deep, down. Where they’d never come up again. Turns out he was wrong. Turns out all he needed was a little prompting from heaven.

 “You find this amusing?” The angel asks through gritted teeth, tone making it very clear that she is taking this seriously, and therefore Dean not being able to despite present circumstances is not appreciated.

Dean shrugs, sensing that’ll piss her off more. She decides not to deign him with a response, goes back to laying her instruments of torture out on the table. Holy water, salt, oil, blades of all different shapes, sizes and colours – even a gun.

Dean has a feeling, a slight, nagging feeling, that the next phase of his life is not going to be a pleasant one. The best he can hope for is that it’ll be short.

And yeah, he’s aware just how fucking unlikely that is.

The angel finishes laying out all her tools, examines them with painstaking slowness. Eventually she hefts an ornate looking gold knife, weighs it in her hand. Dean watches carefully, eye on the blade, waiting for her to ask whatever question she has, something important enough that she seems to think she’ll need to carve it out of him. Or maybe that’s just a perk of the job.

It takes him by surprise, then, when her other arm slips up, pistol in hand, and she shoots him in the leg. He screams in pain, but tries to get himself back under control as quickly as possible. He’s been shot before – even the best hunter sometimes misses the target, hits their son instead of the monster – and he remembers it being a lot more painful than this. Maybe he’s just older and tougher, maybe he’s just another fucking species than the last time. Regardless, he’s able to pull himself together pretty quickly, grins up at the angel looming over him, expression curiously blank.

“Traditionally when you’re torturing someone for information, you gotta ask them a question first.”

The angel raises one eyebrow, replies in a slow, clipped tone.

“Your understanding of tradition is quaint and short lived.” And that, apparently, is all she feels needs to be said on the subject, because she abruptly plunges the gold blade into Dean’s heart.

And it hurts, it really fucking hurts, but it doesn’t seem to be doing much else. He can still breathe, he isn’t going into cardiac arrest or shutting down or any of the things you’d expect to happen when someone puts a goddamn knife in one of your vital organs.

Looks like Orcus wasn’t fucking lying, then.

The angel pulls the blade out and Dean can’t help a pained hiss, flinching as she jabs her fingers into the wound and pokes and prods. She repeats the process with the gunshot wound, muttering to herself, too low for Dean to hear, and then straightens.

“What are you?”

“Human.”

She snorts. “Once, maybe, but there’s a true form of some kind slithering under that skin, and it isn’t mortal.” She punches him in the stomach, wipes her fist on the table, like just touching him through his clothes is enough to dirty her. “Now, what are you?”

“I don’t know.”

She raises a single eyebrow, unimpressed.

“I’ll find out eventually. You have nothing to gain by lying.”

“I’m not lying!”  Dean spits. “I don’t fucking know!”

“Unconvincing.” She admonishes, and then mutters to herself, “a new strain of demon, perhaps.”

She turns back to the table, comes back with a vial of salt. She pinches a few grains between her fingers, rubs them on Dean’s skin and seems surprised when he doesn’t flinch or react. She tries again in different places, squeezes his jaw until his mouth opens and then tips half the vial down his throat. He chokes and gags, but there’s no sizzling, none of the usual demonic reactions.

And okay, he’s probably going to die here in fucking agony, but he’s at least relieved to know that he’s not a demon – that, assuming he does survive this, he’s not going to have to go through that fucking black-eyed bullshit all over again.

Seemingly satisfied that Dean isn’t a demon, the angel starts running through other tests. She injects him with what he instinctively knows is dead man’s blood, draws a silver blade across his skin, and then plunges it into his chest.

He yells out in pain, spits up blood.

“I have access to heaven’s arsenal.” The angel says, idly. “Wherein are contained weapons that can kill every supernatural being ever to have existed. I am very thorough, and I have an eternity to test these weapons on you, unless you tell me what exactly you are.”

Dean figures he’s got nothing to lose by telling the truth here – only problem is, he doubts this fucking psycho angel is gonna believe him.

“I don’t know. I started out human and there was a spell, things got complicated. There’s a seal, heaven, purgatory and hell.”

“The symbol on your arm. It has something to do with this?”

“Yes!”

“Curious. I thought I felt something coming from it when I was fighting you.”

The angel studies the mark, head titled curiously, places two fingers on it and then flinches back. Anger twists her face into a snarl, the kind of violent, horrified fury that Dean recognises. The kind you feel when someone you love a great deal dies in front of you, and then suddenly you’re faced with their killer.

It’s a feeling he’s had a bit of experience with.

“Demon!” The angel snarls, grabbing a random knife from the table, not even looking which in her fury.

“No – we already, I told—”

She stabs the blade into Dean’s stomach.

“How many more of your kind are there?”

“Only me.” He manages to choke out, coughing up more blood.

“How did you do it?”

She pulls out the knife, holds it threateningly at Dean’s throat. They both know it won’t kill him, but it’ll fucking hurt.

“I didn’t.”

“Liar!” She doesn’t go for the throat, rests it on his left eye and applies the slightest bit of pressure.

“It wasn’t me!”

“Which angel did you butcher?”

“I didn’t—”

She thrusts the blade down, into his eye, holds him down as he writhes and screams in pain, and then whips it out with a sickening noise. She gives him a few seconds to process what’s just happened, and then she rests it over the other eye.

“Tell me whose grace you stole, how you did this.”

“I didn’t—”

The angel growls, throws the knife aside.

“Fine, you won’t tell me, I’ll force it out of you.”

She returns to the bag, pulls out one final item. Innocuous enough looking, just a bundle of silver pins, but Dean has seen them before. Has a very visceral memory of Crowley sticking something very similar into Sam’s head.

And he thought fucking torture was gonna be the worst of his problems.

“You should know, these have only ever successfully been used on angels. There’s a greater than likely chance this will kill you, even with your bastardised mongrel power.”

And despite it all, one eyed, bleeding from multiple stab wounds, Dean laughs.

“Lady, fucking bring it on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Completely forgot to say - the reason this chapter is nearly double the normal length is because I'm not going to have wifi for the rest of the week, so there will be no new chapter on 31/03.


	43. Chapter 43

The first spike is excruciatingly painful. Things get a bit fuzzy after that. He knows the angel is talking, he'd be fucked if he knows what she's saying though. Probably some more drivel about him being a demon and who did he kill to get his juice lalalalalalala.

Things stay in that not quite pleasant but surprisingly not grossly unpleasant twilight for a little bit, and then there’s an explosion.

At first he thinks it's a hallucination, his subconscious throwing it up like some hackneyed parallel to his mind fucking splintering into a thousand irretrievable shards. But no, that's not the case. It's an actual explosion, and the last thing he sees before his brain decides that enough is enough and shuts down, is a drab grey pantsuit and a severe brown haircut.

He’s never been gladder to see Hannah. Which, given recent events – breaking into heaven, killing angels to do so – is a bit of a novelty.

God fucking bless her and her sensible shoes.

 

*

 

Dean doesn't get long to enjoy unconsciousness. Hannah jolts him awake, surveys him grimly.

"Why didn't you come to me?" She asks, in her best irritated mom voice.

Dean holds up a shaky, blessedly restraint free hand. He's just regained consciousness and he's beat to shit, he's gonna need a few seconds to understand what she’s saying, a lot longer to come up with an answer.

Hannah knocks his hand out of the way, lays an impersonal finger on his head and heals away all of his injuries. Dean grimaces – growing back an eye is not a pleasant experience, painful and itchy and uncomfortable, but hey, it's better than losing his depth perception forever, so he figures he shouldn’t complain.

"Thanks."

Hannah disregards his gratitude with a flick of her hand.

"You shouldn't have had to endure that, I apologise."

Dean shrugs, getting to his feet. "Part of the job."

"Acacius has been incarcerated."

"Cool."  He doesn’t feel anything really, not gratitude, or indignation that the angel is still alive. Just, yeah. Blank.

"You’ll suffer no permanent damage from," Hannah’s composure drops, anger slipping in, "the barbaric coercion she tried to inflict upon you."

Dean nods slowly.

"Aren't you going to ask about, y'know?" He trails off, unsure how to phrase it.

"The fact that you're no longer entirely human? No."

"Huh"

"A sacrifice was made for you, Dean. It came with consequences. What you chose to do with that is up to you."

"Fair enough." He snorts.

"What you are is none of my business. My business is finding out why you’re in heaven.”

Dean raises an eyebrow, what, like you don't already know.

Hannah sighs, rubs her temples.

"I cannot grant you access to Metatron."

"Just five minutes."

"No."

"For Cas."

It’s a desperate attempt, but a misjudged one. Hannah’s beleaguered understanding vanishes in an instant and she stands there, angelic cold fury and resolve.

"I will escort you to Earth. You will have an hour to make your escape and then, if you are seen within heaven’s borders again without my express permission, I will give the order to slaughter you."

“Fucksake, Hannah."

She doesn't give him a chance to speak further, clicks her fingers. He recognises the clawing, constricting sensation around his throat, tries to say something anyway. No noise comes out the first try, he doesn’t try again.

Dean folds his arms as he’s frogmarched to the gate, pantomiming a show of reluctant acquiescence, really he's searching for the carved banishing sigil. If he can just activate it, he might have a fucking chance.

All he finds is smooth, clear skin. Because of course, of course she healed it off him.

Whatever, he has options. He bites the inside of his cheek, sticks his finger in as if to niggle at a tooth and wets it with blood. He's gotta make this quick, or she'll get suspicious.

He doesn't even get to make the first stroke.

"Sigils like that wouldn’t work here, even if I planned to let you use one." She informs him, immobilising his hands with invisible bonds.

Today is not turning out to be Dean Winchester's day. But then again, neither was yesterday and tomorrow doesn't look much fucking good either.

 

*

 

Dean tries to escape a half dozen times, fails each one until by the time they make it to the entrance Hannah has stopped trying to give him any pretence at dignity and is carrying him over her shoulder as he struggles furiously.

Which makes the fact that Sam fucking Winchester is waiting outside to greet them even more mortifying.

Hannah shoves Dean over the threshold, with the expression of someone returning a badly behaved pet to its proper owner.

"If he comes back here, he will be killed."

Sam doesn't argue, just nods, and Dean knows he’s in real fucking trouble here. Sam is radiating that kind of cold fury that, although Dean would never admit it, still catches at something buried deep inside him.

It’s an anger that manages to suffuse every one of Sam’s actions, every facial expression and slight twitch. It’s one that Dean’s very familiar with, but not from Sam. This is 100% John Winchester in the moment before he snapped and Dean end up beat bloodily into repentance.

And he’s a grown man now, and Sam is his brother not his dad, but that look still fucks him up – still triggers old, deep memories and instincts.  The desire to run, the knowledge that he needs to stay and take this beating so that someone else doesn’t have to.

Dean’s good at taking beatings, and hey, maybe he even deserves this one.

 

*

 

All the way back in the car Dean braces himself, waits for the fury and the recrimination and whatever Sam has to throw at him. He doesn't say anything, though. He ignores Dean, only responds when he tries to change the radio station. Dean gets his hand slapped away, but nothing else.

Claire, meanwhile, is the picture of bubbly effervescence. After complaining about being forced to wait in the car, and then not even being allowed to stay in the front seat – because Sam wants Dean where he can goddamn fucking see him – she congratulates Dean on getting out of heaven alive.

Dean debates what to tell her, partly because he doesn't want to fucking mentally scar her, but mostly because fucking elephant never forgets Sam Winchester is sitting in the front seat, pretending he's not straining to hear every word for ammunition.

It takes Dean a while, but he works it out. Sam isn’t so much giving him the silent treatment, as saving the big fat fucking blowout until Claire is gone. He’s holding his tongue, at not inconsiderable effort probably, until it's just him and Dean and some old fashioned, _I'm coming at this from a place of love but fucking hell do I want to kill you,_ brotherly rage.

Sam does a good job, keeps it in for the entire journey. Okay, maybe he takes it out on the car’s suspension a little bit, but Dean keeps his mouth shut, doesn’t complain.

Sam draws the car to a halt outside the bunker, kills the engine. Claire looks between the two of them, gulps and hops out. She throws a whispered good luck over her shoulder at Dean. He accepts it graciously, wondering when the hell she got her own goddamn key.

 

*

 

Sam gets out of the car first, stretches his legs, waits for Dean to join him. Dean contemplates staying put, pushing back the inevitable bitchfit. Decides it isn’t worth it. He knows what he was doing was right, might as well get the chewing out over and done with before he starts planning his next move.

He’s barely out of the vehicle when Sam grabs him by his lapels and slams him against the passenger door.  Dean grimaces in pain, wonders whether he'll get out of this physically hale or if he'll be sporting a shiner and a limp for a couple days.

"You fucking moron!"

Dean says nothing.

"What've you got, a fucking deathwish? That what you want, to join Cas?"

Dean still says nothing, and it riles Sam up. He shakes him, slams him against the car again.

"Answer me!"

"I was thinking it's about fucking time to get Cas back"

"No you weren't, you were thinking it's about time to follow him into the goddamn grave!"

Dean rolls his eyes, fights to get out of Sam’s grip and fails.

"I don’t have a deathwish, I just know I've gotta do whatever it takes."

Sam punches the car next to Dean’s shoulder, so hard he dents the metal.

"Watch the fucking car, man."

"I don't give a shit about the fucking car! I give a shit about my bastard suicidal brother."

"I'm not—"

"I know what happened to you in there, Dean. Hannah’s lackeys made sure of it, and I know you better than that. You could have escaped, you just didn't want to."

It’s not true, but Dean doesn’t want to give Sam the satisfaction of an argument.

"He's dead and he's not coming back and you need to stop deluding yourself otherwise. Have you even been to the grave?"

"Yes." Dean spits out. It’s the truth, but his spiteful tone makes it sound like a lie.

"I don’t believe you."

"Well I fucking did."

"You need to go," Sam’s tone softens, and he lets go of Dean, steps back. "And you need to make your peace with this. Make your peace with the fact that Cas is dead and nothing either of us do will bring him back."

"You've given up on him." Dean stubbornly sticks to his theme.

"Because he's dead."

"That hasn't stopped us before."

Sam sighs, long and frustrated.

"Just go see his fucking grave, Dean. Do that for me."

"If I do will you stop nagging me?" Maybe his chance to escape is gonna come sooner than expected.

Sam nods.

"Fine." Dean turns, stalks off into the forest. He knows where to go, he's got the route fucking memorised from his nightmares, ones where he goes there and Cas claws his way up out of the ground rotten and decaying, laughing at Dean for daring to hope, or the ones where he goes and all he finds is a goddamn pile of charcoal.

He hears Sam’s footsteps behind him, turns and shakes his head. If he's gonna be forced to fucking do this, he's gonna do it alone. And then he’s gone.

 

*

 

There’s a tree growing over the grave. Not a sapling, or a bush. It’s a full grown tree, looks like it’s been there for years. Dean doesn’t know the species – flora was never his forte. It doesn’t matter, you don’t have to know what something is called to appreciate its beauty.

And it is beautiful, for all the strangeness of seeing it there. It’s not spring, but it’s in blossom. The branches are heavy with white clusters of delicate flowers, getting caught by the breeze and drifting down to carpet the ground below.

Dean doesn’t wonder why it’s there, or how it grew so quickly. He chalks it up to angelic weirdness. After all, fallen grace grows into a tree when ripped out, why wouldn’t a discarded vessel, body echoing with the memory of encasing that same divinity, do something similar.

Dean raps a knuckle against one of the outermost branches, catches a handful of dislodged blossom before it can fall to the ground and puts it in his pocket. He’s not sure why.

“Hey, Cas.” He whispers. “Hold tight, there. I’m coming for you, promise.”

He ducks under the low-hanging branches, makes his way to the trunk and stops dead.

There’s a huge gash carved out of it, reddish coloured sap oozing out like blood.

He knows he should probably be furious – that someone dared to desecrate Cas’s grave, that he wasn’t here to stop it. For now that’s on pause though, because whoever did this left something. A clue, or a fucking taunt in the shape of a note pinned to the tree. It’s stabbed into the bark with a knife, probably the same one that was used to do the damage.

Dean rips it off, reads it carefully.

He scrunches the piece of paper up in his fist, furious hatred building up and up. How fucking dare she. How fucking dare she turn this into a joke, mess him about like this. Doesn't matter what she's done for them, he's gonna kill her.

He stands there, paralysed by rage and hurt and shame, doesn't even notice the sound of crunching leaves and snapped twigs that indicate someone approaching.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, starts into awareness as a deep, male, beautifully, hideously familiar voice greets him

"Hello, Dean."

_Fin_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So guys, that's the end. I can't believe a coda got this out of hand. Ha. I've left the ending very open, so there's always the possibility of a return, but for now, I need to take a break from this world. It's been over a year, and it's time to let poor Dean and Cas and Sam and co. rest in peace for a while. 
> 
> (Btw. I know the note doesn't look quite as described in the fic, and I did actually do a version with red stuff oozing down it, but spoiler alert, it is very hard to read through red viscous liquid) 
> 
> Finally, I want to say a phenomenal thanks to everyone who has read and commented, especially the regulars. At times writing a WIP can be quite a stressful and thankless seeming experience, but I always knew I could rely on you lot to fill my inbox with things that made me giddy. <3

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr with any questions, thoughts, theories or fuck it, just for a chat at [rabidbinbadger](http://rabidbinbadger.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also, this is cheeky, but comments (esp if you are a returning reader) are much appreciated because until they let you leave kudos on each individual chapter I can't tell if you're still around and enjoying it unless you comment. I'm sorry, please validate me, I AM NEEDY WRITER TRASH.
> 
>  
> 
> (Also also: I am literally writing this on the hoof. I tried to make a plan and just abjectly failed. I know what the cause of the dreams is, and I know who/what is doing it, but that's all. Everything else I am making up on a week by week basis. Because of this, I might contradict myself or forget stuff I've written, so if you pick up any mistakes, let me know and I'll try and fix them xoxoxox)


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